


The Intimate Uses of Vampire Venom

by Mischieftess



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: A lil Plot, A lil fluff, Biting!, Consent seeking! (later chapters), Dark!Carmilla, Dubious Consent, F/F, I hope y'all like smut, Masturbation, No actually smut central, Vampires are venomous, a lil horror, a lotta filth, catmilla, catmilla is my patronus, feisty!Laura, kept a mature rating for a whole day, oh yeah did I mention there's lurve?, smut-esque
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-02-02 02:48:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12718101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischieftess/pseuds/Mischieftess
Summary: Expanded and off-camera scenes from Carmilla's perspective, beginning with her first taste of Laura Hollis:Laura was naïve. She was uncomplicated, unburdened with the weight of years and experience. She was sweetness and light, annoying yet adorable despite her decision to capture Carmilla. That night, after Carmilla was released, she couldfinallymuffle Laura’s constant chatter with a firm hand, push her down to the bed, and sink her fangs into that smooth column of vulnerable neck. Oh, this girl wassosweet, and the little scream that escaped before she was gagged made her all the sweeter. And Carmilla was so. very. hungry.





	1. V is for Venomous

**Author's Note:**

> I watched all of Carmilla last week and just could not get this pair out of my head. I've gotta admit, I'm a little torn by the first few chapters of this story. I am a huge advocate for informed, enthusiastic consent and for not having sexual interactions on drugs. Both of these tenets are violated in this fic. However, vampires are beautiful monsters and we know Carmilla's morals are either warped or absent when she meets the girl that changes her world. 
> 
> If you want to skip to the explicitly consensual filth, go to Chapter 6.
> 
> With all of that said, I hope you enjoy these bites.

Laura was naïve. She was uncomplicated, unburdened with the weight of years and experience. She was sweetness and light, annoying yet adorable despite her decision to capture Carmilla. That night, after Carmilla was released, she could _finally_ muffle Laura’s constant chatter with a firm hand, push her down to the bed, and sink her fangs into that smooth column of vulnerable neck. Oh, this girl was _so_ sweet, and the little scream that escaped before she was gagged made her all the sweeter. And Carmilla was so. very. hungry.

The hot liquid sliding over her tongue filled her world as she savored its character and body, leaving her fangs inside the vein and stretching the wounds at each swallow. The harsh tang of adrenaline and fear hit her senses like a hammer, the bitter familiar taste of fun and the hunt and the kill. Her breath stirred the soft little baby hairs running up to Laura’s hairline, bringing in the scents of shampoo and lavender sachets and the warm, comforting aroma of Laura and girl and human that permeated that pillow she so loved to steal. She relished the slow pressure in her sinus glands as her venom flowed, relaxing the body beneath her and feeding it pleasure to take the place of fear.

_I need to catch that fucking mama’s boy before he gets me killed. He left the door open, the asshole. But you, fuck, Laura you taste so good, feel so good. Just a little more._

The effects of the exchange grew as the moments slid by, swallow by swallow. Oh, there, the fear was fading from the blood and there, there was the hot flush of arousal. It twined around Carmilla’s taste buds like a demanding cat, rounded and so rich, tawny port and aged sherry, mingling with pheromones rising from the skin beneath her nose as she sucked and pumped beguiling poison. Her prey’s little moans and groans vibrated through her teeth and against her palm as she drank down the sweetest blood she’d ever tasted.

_Shhh I’ve got you, I know no one has ever touched you like this. I see how hungry you are, how much you want. I’ve got you now and there’s no point in being afraid. It won’t help you. Nothing can help you anymore._

Laura was grinding mindlessly against her thigh, the flannel sliding over the smooth leather, her movements growing more frenetic and needy by the second as her brain and body marinated in the euphoric cocktail. The air was whistling through her nose in harsh pants, carrying a muted cry with every exhale while she arched her back and her hands clutched at Carmilla, demanding more, harder, faster. Carmilla held her immobile, refusing to let the thrashing girl tear her own throat out by accident, gulping down blood and reveling in the heady fact that her girl, _her girl_ , was in her bed and under her and in her mouth.

_Yes, that’s it little one, this is what you want, someone to take you and make you theirs._

Laura’s moans were escalating, growing loud enough even through the hand to hazard an investigation by the nosy neighbors as she bucked and rutted against the immovable muscled strength of Carmilla’s body. The vampire blinked at the sound, woken as if from a trance, sensing the danger and the elapsed time.

_How long…? Shit. Let go. You’re strong, no little human can make you lose control, let go. Let go or she will die, he’ll get away, Mother will KILL YOU and she will DIE!_

But she tasted so good, felt so good. Carmilla felt herself give in, just an inch, sliding down on the thigh between her own legs, her own cunt sensitive and screaming lust into her blood-soaked brain, eliciting a growling groan from her own throat as the leather seam scraped across her own sodden lips.

_Fuck, no, LET GO!_

Carmilla ripped her fangs away with a herculean effort of will before jumping away and off the bed, running after Will. She was afraid to look back – if she did, she might just go back and finish what she’d started.


	2. M is for Masturbatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla thinks a lot. Thinking can be dangerous and so, so satisfying.

They hadn’t really talked about the bite. Not about the intriguing parts, anyway. Not the steamy, raw, libidinous parts that had left a moist smear down the leg of her pants. In fact, they’d only talked, yelled really, about the whole blood-drinking part. And the false imprisonment, and the lying. And the whole mess. And Laura hated her. Carmilla sat on her bed and glared at the wall, irate but without a target. Laura was off doing some ridiculous morning academic thing and the last time they’d interacted, Laura convinced her to stay while snarling at her.

 _I’d thought we really had something. A connection, a spark. And she made a fool of me. I should have just drained her when I had the chance. Why the hell did I stop? I could have done anything with her, she was so…responsive._  

In this weak moment, before Carmilla could bear to apply oil and obliterate all traces of the previous night, she ran her nose across the residue Laura had left, just the tip of her tongue darting out to drag along the leather pant leg.

 _Oh, oh fuck me._ _Karnstein you are so **dumb** sometimes._

Vampires have _exceptional_ senses and _extraordinary_ responses. The taste and scent of Laura’s arousal sent twinges through her salivary glands as they flooded her mouth, but that sensation was eclipsed by the exquisite ache of her fangs pushing through their channels, her venom already flowing in twin eager rivulets to mix with the saliva pooling under her tongue. The pine resin tang of her own poisons didn’t help her condition, triggering the memories of countless conquests, the soft, heaving bosoms and cries of seduced beauties that littered her sordid history like discarded lingerie. She closed her eyes, fisting her hands until her nails dug into her palms.

_Not now, not here, not where I could lose control and fuck up again._

But her imagination was indifferent to her commands. She could almost feel it: the soft skin of Laura’s inner thigh beneath her lips as she pierced the femoral vein, hands desperately, uselessly attempting to push her away before the drugged fervor would have them eagerly tugging her forward, twining into her hair as the heartbeat under her nose accelerated in excited anticipation.

Smelling the rising need, the wet tang of leaking human cunt, she would run the tips of her fingers up to dip into soaked folds, her narcotic bite sending the human beneath her into a convulsive orgasm within moments of plunging inside. She would feel the tight pussy pulsing as she slid inside with her thumb rubbing Laura’s clit, driving her over the edge again and again with firm unforgiving thrusts as Carmilla drank and reveled in the amalgamated essence of that overwhelmed, helpless hormonal explosion.

_Oh god, I think she’s a virgin. I could take her for myself. I’d be her **first**. _

Her resistance snapped, torn to pieces by lustful fantasy. Carmilla curled back into the bed with Laura’s pillow as she scrambled to unzip her jeans, clenching her jaw and feeling the sting as the tips of her fangs grazed the inside of her bottom lip. She groaned with the contact as she finally got her fingers inside, her hand curling to stroke down beside her clit, rolling the rigid nub between her fingers. Burying her face in the pillow, she breathed in the familiar sweet scent of Laura, so freshly human, vulnerable, and delicious.

The skin all over her body rose in gooseflesh, nipples tightening, as she remembered the feel of the pulse under her tongue, the taste of fear, and little sounds of awakening demand that had fed her hunger with carnal lust. The aromatic smears on her pants added to the intensity of her own unfulfilled desire and she found herself rising faster than she’d done in decades, pushing her hips into her hand as she chased the too-recent memories and fantasies of utterly possessing, claiming Laura Hollis for her own.

Her body flexed, jacking into a painful curl as she threw herself up and over the cliff, feeling the clenching insane agony of her own orgasm claim her mind as euphoria spread from her center, weighing down her limbs with sweet lassitude. Carmilla floated, weightless, for a time. The relief of complete mindlessness was fleeting, however, and eventually she drifted back to herself. Her hand shook as she reached up to push the hair out of her eyes, wiping away a rivulet of saliva that had escaped the corner of her mouth. 

_That was…intense. But. It doesn’t matter. I can’t have her, not now, it will draw too much attention and Mother might still take her from me, to punish me if nothing else. But if I can’t have her, I’m going to make sure that no one else can._

Carmilla put herself back together and, when Laura returned, she tied the talisman on Laura’s wrist herself. It was for the best. The protection it offered would keep her safe from vampires, any vampires. But, perhaps most importantly, it would keep her safe from Carmilla. 

_OK, now I can ignore her. I can ignore the way she smelled better than any girl has ever smelled, tasted like sunshine on my tongue, felt so warm and pliant and wanting beneath me. No one has responded that quickly, that absolutely before, it was...wait, fuck, stop thinking about her you idiot. Ignore her. You can do this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I held off writing more for one whole day! Carmilla has wanted Laura for quite a while now and she held back by strength of will, but now that the dam has cracks how long will she last?


	3. T is for Tantalizing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura wants _something_ from Carmilla, and Carmilla bets she knows what it is.

She really should have killed the amazon bitch, but honestly watching Cupcake break off the will-she won’t-she dance with Xena would have been the best part of Carmilla’s week if she hadn’t just jacked off to the _actual_ _memory_ of drinking Laura’s lust-saturated blood. Harsh pride burned in her chest at every glimpse of the fang marks still band-aided on the side of that lovely neck. She licked her lips, memory supplanting the foul aftertaste of her refrigerated stash with the fresh, hot gulps she’d extracted so easily and so, so very pleasurably.

_Stop getting distracted. That charm **really** isn’t working well enough for how much time I put into it. Maybe I'm immune since I made it?_

Carmilla would have pondered the issue further, but then some random-ass phenomenon interrupted and the whole dimwit squad was off to…do _something_ about it. Carmilla tagged along, curious despite herself.

Once they observed the clouds of mushroom spores infecting anyone and everyone with the insatiable urge to burn down the theater building, Carmilla stood back at a safe distance to watch as the team inevitably, valiantly, and idiotically attempted to stop them. That first attempt consisted of Laura tugging a Summer’s elbow and receiving a headbutt to the sternum; the neurotic bravely restraining the experimentalist from diving into a fruiting body to retrieve spore samples; the amazon screaming war cries as she hacked toadstools with an immense machete; and ended with Carmilla punching Laura’s attacker, slinging her stunned roommate over her shoulder, and hightailing it back toward the dorm. 

Instead of being a practical, weak human and hiding from the disaster in progress, Laura was set on being, well, Laura, and organized a masked, spore-proof resistance force that defeated the nefarious fungus and had Carmilla and Laura back in the dorm by 2 am. They were covered in spongy detritus, spores, and suspiciously sweet-smelling fungicide and both immediately headed for the bathroom. Carmilla shucked her boots, wiping them down in the sink with the inside of her shirt, shed for the purpose, before discarding the ruined garment and using a towel.

_If I hurry with the oil they probably won’t smell like this forever. Fuck I hope they won’t smell like this forever. Maybe I should use saddle soap?_

Carmilla wasn’t exhausted, exactly, but the effort of the past evening had taxed her still-shallow reserves. So, when she looked up after tending her boots and saw Laura, freshly showered and wrapped in a towel, staring at her through the mirror over the sink, she didn’t have a snarky response ready.

“You-” Laura’s voice broke, a little hesitant, but determination firmed her features and she continued, “I’m done with the shower. Thanks for letting me go first.”

“Uh, no problem.”

_No problem? No **problem**?! You’re in a bra and she’s naked, you’re smoother than that!_

It was too late, Laura had fled and Carmilla was still dredged in muck and slime. She rolled her eyes in disgust at herself and shed the rest of her clothes to step into the shower.

When Carmilla strode back into the room, the lights were still on and Laura was sitting on her bed, hugging the yellow pillow to her chest. The bites had been released from their band-aid coverings and Carmilla gritted her teeth. Even the sight of the pillow and the marks gave her a tiny visceral flashback, clenching her muscles and drawing her nipples into firm sensitive knots. Laura turned as Carmilla stopped and swallowed nervously, pulling her hair forward over the bites.

“Hey,” her voice was quiet, “can we talk?”

Carmilla shook off her momentary pause and continued into the room, affecting disinterest as she replied, “talk? About what?”

She shed the towel, letting it fall on the floor beside the bed as she walked to the wardrobe and grinning to herself at the slight intake of breath she heard from Laura's direction. Damp strands of hair left little trickles of water down her back as she rummaged through the wardrobe and dressed in tank and pajama bottoms. She turned, quickly enough to see her human roommate avert her eyes. 

_Not quickly enough, Cupcake. I saw you staring. Aw, is that a blush?_

The attraction was there, she could feel the tension between them drawing tighter with each passing second. She knew this dance, and she knew how to _win_. And oh, she wanted to win. 

_Fuck mother, fuck all of this, I'm going to take what I want._

Laura looked back up as Carmilla stalked closer, lissome grace flowing into her movement as she watched her prey freeze, much like a soft, tender rabbit under the intent gaze of her furrier side. She crossed the room and bent to look into those caramel-brown eyes from mere inches away, her hand reaching out to cup a cheek as she felt a crooked smile curve her lips.

She enunciated carefully, caressing the words with teeth and tongue, “are you sure you don’t want something else, Creampuff?”

She saw Laura’s eyes dart down to her lips, the pupils dilating, felt the thrumming pulse at her fingertips accelerate, heard the hitch of breath as her meaning sunk in. She pressed the advantage.

“Are you sure you don’t want me,” she slid her fingers into Laura’s hair and grasped it close to the roots, using it as a handle to tilt those eyes back up to hers, “to make you feel things you’ve never felt,” she knelt on the bed, in front of Laura, holding her gaze and feeling the shiver her touch, her words, had inspired, “to do terrible, wonderful things to you, again and again,” and she pulled the pillow to the side before she brought their lips together. The first kiss, chaste and gentle, was followed by a second, harder press of lips. Carmilla swept her tongue out to tease, then kissed her again.

_Oh, your lips are so soft, so sweet. Let me in and I promise you’ll let me do **anything** I want._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Laura let the right one in? Will Carmilla do anything she wants? Find out next time, gentle Creampuffs, and until then happy hunting!


	4. P is for Predatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla shows Laura what happens to virgin sacrifices in a vampire's lair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I crunched some numbers. The body of a 120-130 lb woman (Laura works out, look at those forearms! But she's short too.) holds about 4-4.5 L of blood. An average blood donation is about 470 mL (1 pint, ~10% blood volume), and you can lose up to about 15% of blood volume (675 mL) to count as a class I hemorrhagic shock, which isn't too dangerous (though it would need substantial recovery time). The volume of liquid consumed in one swallow for women averages ~15 mL. So, if a vampire wanted to drink a regular Red Cross donation amount of blood their max number of regular swallows should be around 30. However, although plasma (non-cellular part of blood) would be up to normal volume in about 24 hours, it takes 4-8 weeks for the red blood cell counts to get back to normal. I'm speeding this up with magic (venom stimulates erythrocyte production, isn't that convenient?), but I'm also having Carmilla only take small amounts so that she can come back again and again, the naughty thing.

Laura hesitated against Carmilla's kiss, just for a moment, before she opened to the vampire’s clever tongue and eager, flowing, venomous kiss, moaning into her mouth. Sliding forward, Carmilla pushed until she had the girl pinned to the wall, almost up in her lap, feeling legs wrap themselves around her waist and hands clutching her shoulders, and poured herself into the kiss. All her desire, her hunger, her urge to claim, and, underlying everything, her growing affection for this brave, beautiful nincompoop. She slid her tongue along the inside of Laura's teeth, teased her tongue, pulled back to suck and nip her lower lip, then pushed forward to glide around her tongue again.

Carmilla released the hair from her fingers and let her hands travel down Laura’s shoulders, the surprisingly dense muscle smooth beneath her touch as she stroked down to her sides, to her waist, and down to grasp the firm curve of her ass and grind forward. Laura gasped, breaking the kiss, lust-darkened eyes wild as she stared down at Carmilla.

“Carm–“ was all she could get out before Carmilla twisted them and landed on top of Laura on the bed.

“I need you,” the words were harsh in Carmilla’s throat as she used one hand to lift Laura’s chin, their eyes meeting. She growled, “you know what I like the most about Creampuffs, hmm?" She licked her lips and watched Laura's eyes flit down to them and back up, wide-eyed and innocent and all sorts of tempting. She continued, "The cream filling. I am going to tear you open so I can suck and lick it out of you. You’re gonna **love** it.”

Laura’s eyes dilated still further, breathing and pulse rates quickening as hands scrabbled up to claw into her shoulders, but they weren’t pushing her away or pulling her closer. The girl was _so_ conflicted. Carmilla reveled in the tension, the human’s desire to both run away and toward her bite. This was her favorite part, the moments before a bite, when the fear and lust warring for dominance left her victim open and unable to resist her bite. Or maybe the first flush of the bite was her favorite. Or maybe what came after…

_It’s all my favorite. You’re my favorite, Creampuff, and I’m going to have you for dessert, right now._

Carmilla leaned down, meeting no resistance from Laura’s grip, and tilted her prey’s chin up and to the side as she drew her tongue across, leaving a wet line along the tendons and muscles drawn taut along Laura’s neck, flicking little licks to the scabbed-over bites as Laura’s whole body flexed under her, trembling in anticipatory fervor. The vampire’s fangs slid achingly into place with an audible _shnick._ Intoxicants had been oozing gently into her saliva since the moment she’d dropped the towel, they had infused her kiss and sunk through skin, but now she felt her sinuses swell, ready to flush captivating poison through her fangs and into the girl quivering in her hands.

She opened her mouth wide and dragged just the tips of her fangs along the soft sweet flesh. Laura squeaked and tried to pull away, so Carmilla licked her prey again, and again, painting streaks of narcotic seduction up to the shell of an ear, down to the collarbone, until she felt hips push up against her own, sensed tentative fingertips burrow along her scalp to pull her closer, and heard the little eager sounds that began to leak out. She scraped her fangs along the skin again, this time with no resistance, until they were poised at her previous marks, then surrendered to her need and bit down with a happy growl.

Laura’s cry wasn’t pain, wasn’t pleasure, but a mix of the two that set Carmilla’s own blood aflame even as her venom flooded out into the vein. She pushed her fangs forward in the wounds to let them gape open, and _sucked_ as the first glorious rush of blood danced across her tongue. She shuddered in reaction. The taste and texture was as rich as she remembered, the silk of arousal and lace of adrenaline dragging across her tongue with the bite of wine and burn of fine spirits. She swallowed again, taking just a little at a time to prolong the experience, the burgeoning desire sending tingles down her neck and spine.

_Two. Fuuuck you taste so good._

She heard Laura’s reactive sigh as the drugs hit, the hands at shoulder and scalp that had tightened with the bite no longer digging into Carmilla’s skin, and at her next sip the passion in the blood burst into full blaze. It had thickened into a silken cord that dragged her forward, pushing her hips between the legs of the girl she’d ensnared, rubbing against her to incite more release, more exquisite pleasure. She could just stay here, drinking the girl down to the dregs, and nothing would be able to stop her.

_Four. But I want more, so much more than just a meal._

Carmilla pulled out and away, the hand in her hair providing no resistance. Rearing up above Laura, she brought her hands down to grab the thin tank top and tear it away. She growled, baring her fangs, at the sight. Laura’s chest was heaving, the cut edges of her collarbones framing the slope of her pectoral muscles, how her soft breasts were gently mounded and topped with crinkled dark areolae and nipples that stood proudly erect. Almost of their own accord, Carmilla’s hands traced down slowly, almost reverently, fingers dimpling the skin as her thumbs circled the hard nubs.

Laura _whined_ in reaction and Carmilla looked up to meet eyes that had changed, distilled into a thin band of brown encircling enormous pupils, the returning stare catching Carmilla in all her vampiric glory. Laura’s mouth was open as she panted, her brow knit to make an adorable little crease of overstimulated confusion. Pulling her fingers up to pinch those hard nipples, Carmilla tugged them, watching her girl’s eyes roll up and hips buck in reaction. 

Carmilla laughed, a happy bright thing, and enunciated carefully through her fangs, “you’re so delicious, so responsive. Fuck, Cupcake, if I’d known you would love this so much I’d have taken you months ago.” 

She stooped, then, to pull a swollen nipple into her mouth between her fangs, rolling the soft skin and tissue with her tongue and lips and blunt human teeth as a hand found the back of her head and pulled her closer. Laura was gasping her responses into the room, her voice bouncing off the ceiling, and every sound was praise that stoked Carmilla’s own need.

Carmilla nipped the flesh in her mouth, drawing beads of blood that she lapped up eagerly, as Laura yelped out a blurred “ohmygod." 

_Fuck I need more, more of everything._

Carmilla surged up to dig her fangs back into the slowly leaking holes in Laura’s neck, the fresh insertion drawing a new pulse of venom from her fangs. The bonfire of lust in Laura’s blood had risen, washing over and around and through her mind with searing bliss, driving a groan out of her throat that vibrated against the skin in her mouth. With every draw and swallow her tongue laved the skin, tracing the inside edges of her lower teeth where they anchored her to Laura’s throat up to where her fangs were buried, the tip probing into the holes that opened there. She swung a thigh over Laura’s and indulged her own throbbing need, grinding down against her prey, her girl, as the motion was returned upon her own leg with interest. 

 _Five. Fuck this is amazing. Six. You feel so good, do you even know how good you feel? Seven. Fuck. Fuuuck._  

All her seductive plans, the urge to drive herself into that virginal pussy, breaking Laura open around her fingers for the first time, and lap up blood mixed with sweet slickness from the source, fled in the face of the urgent hot drive to taste Laura’s orgasm as it rocketed through the blood. It was so close, she could feel the sympathetic drive to completion building in her own gut, tightening down as her venom pumped deeper, as she sucked harder. 

_Eleven. Now, now it needs to be now!_

Cocking her hip, she pressed her thigh still more firmly into Laura’s cunt, her own swollen clit sending thrills up her spine at every thrust, and when she moved her hand back to Laura’s breast to pinch and roll the nipple she felt the girl stiffen and arch beneath her, screaming a release that echoed into her own mouth through her fangs. Moments later, the hormonal gestalt of the blood orgasm slammed into her mouth and exploded straight into her cunt. She was on fire, the pressure in her belly coiling up and flooding forward into a pleasurable ball of pain that rose with every slide of her body and swallow of blood.

She purred and growled as she rutted, rising higher and higher as everything tightened and boiled inside her skin until it blew out, breaking her open, her back bowing as a long, stuttering moan fled her throat. She felt her glands contract once more, Laura’s body arching against her again as her own release sent her girl into a second, shorter convulsion. Carmilla jerked with the first aftershock, the second, her canines still fastened in Laura’s throat as her body processed the slow, spreading euphoria of release.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, Carmilla was not expecting for that to get out of hand so quickly! I wonder how she's gonna deal with this development. And how will Laura react? Find out next time, faithful Creampuffs, and sweetest dreams.


	5. C is for Chagrined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura recovers and expresses some of her thoughts and Carmilla learns a new trick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No smut in this one, sadly, just aftermath.

Carmilla lay on top of her erstwhile victim for long, blissful minutes, stunned by the intensity of her own orgasm. As she drifted slowly towards conscious thought, she realized that her fangs were still embedded, blocking the wounds. Tempting as it was to just fall asleep inside Laura, she couldn’t stay like that. She could almost hear Mattie’s despairing admonishment, delivered so many times during the first decade or so of her undeath.

_Really, darling, you’re a vampire, not a baby sleeping on the tit. It’ll go bad if you just leave it lying there._

But she was so far past that sort of mindless killing, and the pulse against her lower lip was strong and steady, a little faster than it should be but reassuring nonetheless. She pulled her fangs out, avoiding the urge to suck just one more time, and sliced her own tongue open on a sharp tip. The pain grounded her, pulling her even more back to herself as her own dark blood drooled out and seeped into the scrapes and holes her fangs had left. She felt the flesh tightening, contracting the punctures.

Peeling herself away before her tongue could heal completely, Carmilla treated Laura’s breast as well, soothing the small bite until it shrunk into two tiny red marks framed by white flesh. She stared down at the girl she had just ravished, at the torn shirt, the blood smears along her breast and torso, the gory mess at her neck, and up to the lips her kisses had bruised. She looked up still further and froze. Laura’s eyes were open, slightly glazed but watching her nevertheless.

A hand came up to her face, the thumb running along her cheekbone, and she wanted to purr and push against the gesture.

“You’re beautiful,” came Laura’s voice, full of something Carmilla couldn’t define, something warm and friendly and welcoming. Welcoming in a way Carmilla hadn’t felt in a long time. The vampire swallowed and retracted her fangs, trying not to grimace at the discomfort as they receded, and cleared her throat as the hand dropped away. She  _missed_ it. This was not happening.

_Say something back. Say_ **_anything_ ** _back._

“You taste amazing.”

_Ugh you idiot say something_ **_nice_ ** _!_

“I mean, you’re amazing. I – this, you, I didn’t expect –“ She huffed, exasperated with herself, “aw hell I’m fucking this up. Cupcake, you are incredible.”

The smile on Laura’s face broke through her self-flagellation. “So are you,” Laura grinned at her, wide and a little goofy, “so, this is what being high is like?”

_She knows. Fuck, how does she know?_

“Uh. What do you mean?” Carmilla was going for casual, but she could hear the guilty knowledge in her own voice.

“I mean your ‘vampire’s kiss’ thing,” Laura waved her arms for emphasis before continuing, “god it felt amazing. Like I could float out of my skin and explode like a firework! Aha! I guess I sorta did!” Laura’s enthusiasm was building as the torpor wore off, and she pulled her hand back to feel at her neck. “It doesn’t even hurt! How do you do that, is it like a magic spell? The books I read were never sure what exactly vampires do to keep humans docile, but darn if it isn’t powerful. And really, really pleasant. Oh god am I gonna become addicted now? I mean it would probably be really awesome too but I don’t want to be, like, killed so I’m not sure if that’s ok.”

Carmilla blinked at the onslaught of babble, the thoughts swirling through her own mind holding her immobile.

_She knows she knows she knows…and she thought it was pleasant? She_ **_liked_ ** _it? Oh she stopped talking. Quick, think of something to say!_

“Uh,”  _yeah real brilliant Karnstein, say something else_ “you read up on vampires. Of course, you read up on vampires. You – you liked it?” She looked down at the mess she’d made, at the smeared blood and torn flesh at Laura’s neck. It shouldn’t bother her, it never had before, but it did now.

_This is new. 300 years and this is new. Huh._

“Um. Let’s talk, but later?”

Carmilla shifted her weight, preparing to get up and Laura grabbed her arm. “Wait, will you –“ she looked lost, suddenly, “will you stay with me?”

Heart breaking a little despite herself, Carmilla nodded, “I’m coming back. I just want to get you cleaned up and get some chocolate into you. Ok?”

“Ok.”

Shaking off her post-orgasmic inertia, Carmilla set the microwave to heat hot cocoa, then scooted to the bathroom for a wet washcloth. While the water was running, she inspected herself in the mirror. As usual, she’d eaten like an unruly toddler, smearing blood down her own face and neck. She scrubbed at it hurriedly with some paper towels, deciding that the spots and streaks on her black shirt might not show up to a human eye, and ran the washcloth under the tap. When she came back into the room, Laura was still watching her from the bed, torn shirt and blood still a visceral reminder of what had just occurred.

The human’s high had faded, no longer fueling that bright light behind her eyes that Carmilla loved – liked. That she _liked_ so much. That was to be expected – the first time Carmilla had bitten someone, there was no high at all from her venom and she’d drained him dry without even smothering his agonized screams. A century later, her victims would be aroused into a frenzy, then fall into a stupor for hours or days. She’d hated the fact that some would never rouse themselves to wakefulness again. Two hundred years of experience, of her own body’s adaptation, and anyone she bit would still come to her as if tempted by a succubus, and afterwards would be happy and carefree but able to stumble home or into bed with the vampire. Three hundred years and her venom was a refined aphrodisiac, able to command full, ecstatic participation for a time but allowing her prey to come back to themselves within minutes. It was perfect for an evening’s hunt in the city without permanent attachment or undue damage. Carmilla drew herself together and took a deep breath, steadying despite her usual disregard for oxygen.

_Do what you intended to do._

She sauntered over to the bed and leaned down, running the warm damp cloth over the streaks of red that decorated the white skin of Laura’s breast. Laura’s hands were fisted in the torn edges of her shirt and moved to pull them together after Carmilla finished her cleaning.

“Ow,” Laura flinched when she moved to the neck, one hand reaching up to touch the marred skin as the other held her shirt closed. “Guess your vampire voodoo wears off pretty fast. I sorta remember that, from last time.”

Carmilla could see the unhappy memory of that first bite sifting to the surface after those words. Carmilla grimaced. If she’d closed the old bites, there wouldn’t be much pain but the old tissue damage and bruising weren’t perfectly healed.

_Sloppy, I haven’t been this sloppy in years._

“Um, yeah. I never really wanted to leave someone just…defenseless. Afterwards. The new bites should heal really fast, though, I, uh, I did something to speed them up.” 

_You are saying WAY too much. Stop. Go do something._

She dropped the washcloth in the trash and stood up, picking up a new shirt from the wardrobe. The microwave was still humming, so she turned back to the bed.

Her internal copy of Mattie chimed in again,  _Taking care of your meals? How quaint. She’s a snack, not a lover._

She shook the intrusive thoughts away and crossed to sit down next to Laura, who was still holding her tank top together and looking decidedly more unwelcoming with each passing second.

She offered the shirt, “Here-” she stopped as the shirt was grabbed out of her hand.

Laura stared at her for long seconds, then said, “turn around.”

_This is not going well._

She obeyed, listening with growing dismay as Laura sat up and struggled out of the torn tank and then angrily wrestled with the new one. There was silence for a minute, and she sat there with brows knit and her shoulders hunched.

“Turn back around,” Laura ordered, and she did. Then she backed away a little as the little firebrand whirled on her with a finger pointed, jabbing it into her chest. The high had clearly worn off as quickly as before and as a bonus it had left Laura spitting mad.

“You! I should  _hit_ you. What gives you the right to  _bite_  me again?” Fuming, Laura jabbed her finger into Carmilla again. “I don’t care if you’ve got aphrodisiac magic, I am not a Capri Sun!”

“You’re delicious and fun-sized,” Carmilla retorted, “it’s hard to tell the difference.”

_Oh yes, snark will definitely make this go better._

“Argh!” Laura bared her blunt human teeth at Carmilla and snarled, “and you don’t even care that you didn’t ask me what I want! You didn’t even think that maybe I wanted to see what it was like again and just needed to be asked?”

_What? Oh. Oh fuck._

Laura looked at her face and got  _angrier_  somehow, “but you didn’t, did you? You just took what you wanted, enjoyed a little snack with some sex on the side, without my permission. God,” she buried her face in her hands, her words muffled, “to think I was starting to  _like_  you.”

The microwave dinged. Carmilla held herself immobile, staring at Laura. The human girl was definitely upset, a combination of anger and something sad. It hurt Carmilla to see it. Her stomach was wound up in knots, heavy as a stone.

_What the fuck is wrong with me? But, fuck, fuuuuck she’s right. I should not have done things this way._

Her previous conquests hadn’t had the strength of character, the independence, the  _agency,_ to challenge her like this. She  _had_  just taken it. It’s what she’d always done before. It’s what vampires  _do_. And Laura had gone along with her…eventually. But Carmilla was swiftly realizing that  _eventually_  was not  _enthusiastically_  and, furthermore, that enthusiasm might have been something amazing. Something worth striving for. Those moments when Laura had enjoyed the bite had made her feel good, almost happy in a way she hadn’t felt in ages. Here, now, with Laura, she could almost see how much better this would have been if she’d taken the time to ask.  

_I need to fix this. How do I fix this?_

Laura was glaring at her, righteous fury limning every rigid muscle of her body and the curl of her lip. Carmilla couldn’t hold her gaze. She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked to the side. The usual excuses, the smooth lines like, _I couldn’t help myself, you were so beautiful,_ just wouldn’t come out of her mouth. She got up, instead, went to the microwave, and retrieved the cocoa she’d put in Laura’s favorite mug. She walked back to the bed and held it out it to Laura.

“I’m sorry,” Carmilla offered, and Laura looked up.

“You’re right, I don’t- I mean I didn’t ask. I haven’t asked, not ever, really. But, now that you bring it up…” She sighed and brushed her other hand through her hair. “I really wish I  _had_  asked. I’m sorry, Laura." 

Laura’s face had relaxed as she spoke, anger seeping away slightly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you apologize, to anyone.” She took the cocoa, blew, sipped. Carmilla just stood there, hand still outstretched, and watched. The silence grew and Carmilla shifted uncomfortably.

_Maybe she needs more from me? Should I say something else? I should say something else. An explanation? Fuck I haven’t asked anyone to forgive me in so long that I’ve forgotten how._

She dropped her arm to her side and cleared her throat, “I should have asked. I wanted you so much, and I thought –“ Laura looked up and she faltered at the sight of those big brown eyes, “it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

“It does matter. The story _always_ matters. Tell me?”

Carmilla sighed again, another huff of air she didn’t need but didn’t know what to do with. She waved a hand, “tonight was fun. Saving you from an angry amazon and then helping you with the mushroom apocalypse was entertaining. And then, after the shower, I just saw how you looked at me, thought of having you underneath me, in my mouth, and wanted to show you how good it could be. I didn’t even think of asking first.”

“Do you ever ask?” Laura sipped her chocolate again and waited. She looked curious, like she was ferreting out some story for her journalism class, not angry like a few minutes before. Carmilla hoped that meant something good, not bad.

“No,” she replied, “it’s been so long since it mattered whether I asked that I just didn’t think, I acted.”

“Does it matter now?” The curiosity was stronger now.

“Yes,” she knew that to be true.

“Why?”

“Because you’re special to me.” The words burst out of her and she almost tried to claw them back, because they were the absolute, dangerous truth, but the look of focused interest on Laura’s face stopped her.

Laura sat back, her body language somehow satisfied, and replied, “apology accepted.” Carmilla blinked.

_Wait, really?_

A finger came up and poked her again, in that same spot.  _Ow._ “This time! This time only, do you hear me? If you don’t ask next time, I won’t be nearly so understanding.” Carmilla nodded, grateful for the reprieve, then paused.

_Wait, what? Next time?!_

“Now, come here,” Laura patted the bed beside her hip, “you said you’d talk to me, I want to know how your vampire tricks work, so talk. You can atone by sharing knowledge.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof y'all I tried to make this story just a bodice-ripper but Laura is too fucking feisty for my own good and demanded they hash matters out. Don't worry, she's not nearly vanilla enough to give up this intriguing vampire biting thing. Now hopefully she'll let me move on to more seduction eyes, venomous kisses, and much less lesbian processing.


	6. B is for Beguiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, Carmilla received another chance, and she decided to go for it.

They’d made up. Well, Laura had accepted Carmilla’s apology, and, well, she’d actually apologized. Both were still a bit surprising, but Carmilla wasn’t going to poke at it. Laura had extracted two things from her: a promise to ask before biting and/or fucking Laura (Carmilla’s words, Laura had blushed rather distractingly at her choice of terminology and then demanded that she change 'biting' to 'envenomating'which was just **nitpicky** ) and an explanation of how her venom worked through skin, oral, or intravenous infusion. She hadn’t shared everything. There was the transformation into her panther, for instance.

The cat had been an interesting and unexpected development after she and Mattie had taken on a witch about a century into Carmilla’s unlife. She’d been thrown into a shelf full of bottled potions and one had been crushed, its contents smeared all over her back. Mattie had had to haul the suddenly feline, disoriented, and wolf-sized Carmilla out of there by the scruff of her neck while the witch had escaped to parts unknown. It had taken days in mother’s dungeon to coax her human form back out, but the cat was there to stay. It had grown much larger during the intervening centuries as its personality entwined with hers, never completely subsumed but always a presence.

She loved the cat: the freedom of running through the woods, sleeping in trees, scenting the air, and hunting down four-footed prey all appealed to her primal vampire nature. But sometimes, being part cat was quite frustrating. First there was the shedding. Fortunately, Carmilla didn’t care too much about that, especially since it made Laura so furious that she made the cutest faces, and besides, the neurotic ginger with the cleaning fetish visited often enough to keep the dust bunnies from getting large enough to gain sentience. Then there was the purring. It was _embarrassing_. Carmilla made damn sure not to purr without first biting or otherwise subduing those within hearing range. But most aggravating by far were the intrusive thoughts. The cat had learned how to communicate with her directly over the centuries and liked to comment occasionally on aspects of her life.

The cat had perked up in the back of her mind, ears twitching and tail tip up, when the biology major made some comment about a protozoan that makes people like cats. After Carmilla charged out of the room, unable to face another conversation about the disappearing girls, she went up to the roof to think. She basked in the sun, pondering whether she should put on her fur and paws to absorb more of the late evening heat. The cat interjected its own thoughts after it was clear that Carmilla was only interested in moping.

**_Need prot-o-zo-an._ **

_What?_

**_Prot-o…Prot. Prot makes people like cats. We are cat. Need prot._ **

_Why the hell would we want that?_

**_Give to Cupcake._ **

Carmilla paused. She knew her cat liked Laura: liked that she shared their den, that she smelled good, that she bought chocolatey snacks in abundance, especially that she had that yellow pillow, but not that it would advocate mind control with _Toxoplasmosis gondii_.

**_Not mind control. That was vamp. Vamp hurt Cupcake. This is present! Kill prot, leave on Cupcake bed. Cupcake will like big cat. Cupcake will pet big cat._ **

_That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!_

**_Need prot._ **

_You don’t get it, it’s a microscopic parasite._

**_Vamp is parasite. Need prot._ **

_No!_

In her mind’s eye, the big cat huffed and turned her back on Carmilla, sitting with her ears back and tail switching. Carmilla sighed and looked back up at the sky.

_Damn cat._

* * *

 

Later, after the sun had set, Carmilla wandered back home and into the mingled smells of popcorn, Laura, and…biology nerd. _Great_. And Laura was having another nightmare about blood. Wonderful. Another reminder of what Carmilla had lost, and of the sheer number of times she’d heard the others talk of Ell. So _many_ of the other girls had had these dreams. This was getting worrying. Carmilla had never seen anyone other than vampires involved in Mother’s shtick and had thought the dreams were some kind of vampiric projection magic, thus the talisman.

_I don’t know what else I can do to protect her, besides accompany her on her fool’s mission to attract more damn attention. Oh, fantastic, why don’t I continue by going on this ill-advised trip to the library. What could possibly go wrong?_

Carmilla was getting a sneaking suspicion that the library didn’t like her much. There were the strange partitions that appeared between her and the humans, the books constantly diving off shelves and landing on her head, the computer that screamed when she came around the corner – although that was actually a human once, apparently, so maybe it was just demonstrating good sense.

_But hey, this science person is much more entertaining than I had previously thought. They got **bit** by a book and instead of freaking out tried to take samples. Entertainingly stupid._

But afterwards, Laura thanked her for coming along and, despite the heroic vampire crap that kept getting laid at her feet, she was satisfied, pleased with herself for going. Laura had even blushed when she made the “who would buy the cupcakes?” comment. And then Laura turned off the webcam.

Carmilla set the book aside with a rustle of paper and leather, meeting Laura’s curious glance with a sultry one of her own that made the human girl’s breath catch in her throat, freezing her in place for just a moment before a blush crept up her neck and she turned to face the computer again. Carmilla swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood, looking down at the back of Laura’s head for a moment before stepping forward, stooping to brush away the curtain of shiny, straight hair covering one ear. She may have neglected to use her words before, but by no means did she forget _how_ to use them. 

_Fuck she smells so good, how do shampoo and laundry detergent smell better than perfume against her skin? Or is it just her?_

“Creampuff,” she exhaled, seeing the little shiver of reaction as her words brushed past skin, “now that you know what I can do to you, how I can make you feel,” she traced one hand down over Laura’s clothed shoulder, feeling the muscles tense under her palm, “how about I peel you out of these clothes, throw you on a bed, and show you what I can really do?”

Laura’s voice was shaky, “are you sure you aren’t already doing something to me?”

She squeaked a little as Carmilla rested her other hand on the back of her neck, under her hair. Carmilla could smell the arousal under the normal scents, still tinged with a modicum of fear and adrenaline.

_Even though I’m asking, she still smells like prey, she’ll still give me the parts of the hunt I love._

“Positive, sweetheart, I haven’t even touched your skin with my lips, or tongue, or teeth,” she chuckled in Laura’s ear, dragging her fingers down the front of Laura’s shirt and dipping inside the gap between each button to gently stroke the skin, “this is all you, responding to me. My closeness, my touch, my words sinking into your psyche. I can _smell_ you, so delicious and wanting. What do you say? You’ve kissed me, you know how talented my tongue is. Don’t you want to feel what it’s like to have my tongue slide across your clit, circling it before plunging inside you?” She swallowed the poisoned saliva pooling under her tongue as it almost choked her next words, “don’t you want to feel me inside you in every way?”

Laura’s head rocked back slightly at the words and Carmilla rubbed their cheeks together, looking down over Laura’s shoulder. As her hand reached the hem of the shirt, she pulled it up to run light fingertips across the soft belly skin above the waistband of Laura’s jeans. A little sound crept out of Laura’s mouth at the touch, and the skin of her neck prickled with goosebumps where Carmilla’s other palm rested.

_She's so soft. I want to know if her inner thigh is this soft, if I'll be able to feel how smooth it is under my lips while my fangs puncture her femoral vein._

“I want you, Cupcake. I want to make you scream my name. I want to drink your blood as you come around my fingers. I’ll take care of you. All you have to do is say yes.”

“No.” The word was breathy but firm, an ice-water shock to Carmilla’s system, and she stilled her entire body for a few seconds. It _hurt._ She'd thought they were on the same page, that she would simply have to use her other talents of seduction, make sure to ask first, and Laura would say yes. She felt a surge of violent lust, urging her to break her promise, the ache in her cheekbones growing as the pressure behind her fangs threatened to push them down for her to capture her prey. The thoughts came too easily after centuries of unmitigated predation.

_She’s mine! I’ll take her anyway! She can’t stop me. If I take her often enough, hard enough, she’ll be mine regardless of what she wants. I’ve seen how Mattie does it, I can do it too._

She struggled with it, fighting her instincts to claim and devour with the decision she’d made to accede to Laura’s wishes, the deep affection she had found for the girl, and her strange pride in Laura's strength of will. Her panther growled at her from the shadows of her mind, tamping down her vampire side’s demands still further.

**_Cupcake says no!_ **

She sighed and closed her eyes.

_I heard, I’m going._

The taste of her own excited secretions soured against her tongue, a reminder of what she could not have. She clenched her jaw and forced herself to move, to pull back, tugging Laura’s shirt back down before starting to back away. A firm hand closed around her wrist and she stopped, staring as Laura spun the chair around.

Laura cleared her throat and spoke, brown eyes serious, “That wasn’t my real answer, Carm. I’m sorry - I just needed to know if I _could_ say no, and if you would stop if I did. I was testing myself, and I’m sorry but I was testing you too.”

Carmilla almost didn’t dare breathe but she needed the air to ask, “oh. Uh. What does that mean?”

“It means that my answer is yes.” She stood up, inside Carmilla’s reach, and tilted her head up so their lips were only inches apart. “I want you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, now, I know y'all are gonna hate me for leaving it there before we get to the smut but hey, I could have stopped when Laura said, "No." But that would have been _evil._
> 
> Tune in next time on "Venom" to see the biting and/or fucking commence! Thanks for reading.


	7. A is for Ardent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla peels Laura's clothes off and Laura does likewise. ;)

**Last time on _Venom_ :**

“It means that my answer is yes.” She stood up, inside Carmilla’s reach, and tilted her head up so their lips were only inches apart. “I want you too.”

**Now:**

It was astonishing how _good_ those words felt. Laura wasn’t under her control, wasn’t subject to her whims or subservient to her needs – she had _chosen_ to be here, at this moment, to give herself to Carmilla. A thought occurred to her: since she had never had sex as a human and after death it had just been a sequence of eat-or-be-eaten, she knew little about consensual sex between equals. Mattie had been her lover, for a time, but Carmilla had been engulfed in the ocean of Mattie’s power and it was even worse with Mother. Carmilla shuddered. It was best not to think of Mother and sex, ever. With humans, she herself had always been a force of nature (well, supernature), her prey swept along in her wake and doing whatever she needed them to do. Even the girls she'd "befriended" and seduced hadn't known what she was doing to them.

_But this is new. How do you keep showing me new things, Laura? How do you keep changing my world?_

Laura was so close, Carmilla could feel her breathing in short soft bursts. Cautious and still perhaps a bit stung from Laura’s impromptu test, Carmilla waited, watching as the look in those warm brown eyes crystalized into intent just before Laura leaned in and kissed her. Carmilla’s focus narrowed to those soft lips as they pressed and slanted against hers. She laced her fingers into Laura’s hair and flicked out her tongue, tasting just the edges of strawberry-glossed lips and then, as they opened to her, felt her way inside to tangle it with Laura’s own eager tongue. She groaned, the tastes of Laura’s adrenaline, lust, and the subtle edges of caramel affection dragging out more of her own sticky evergreen. Laura pulled back, eyes wide, and touched her own lips with shivering fingertips.

“That’s your venom? That pine sap, juniper berry, Christmas tree taste?” Carmilla nodded, eyes focused on Laura’s mouth as it formed the next words, “god, you taste so good.”

Carmilla leaned forward and murmured, voice low and raspy with restrained passion, “you taste like sunshine, like a warm safe hearth, like nothing else in this world. It makes my venom flow, makes me want to spread it through your arteries with every pulse of sweet blood, making you hot and wet and ready for me.”

Laura surged forward and Carmilla caught her lips with her own, her hands roaming down to cup that perfect round ass and lift until legs wrapped around her waist. She squeezed down to grind Laura’s center against her own stomach and tasted the moan offered into her mouth, savoring it along with the wet mixture of their saliva. Hands grasped her arms, pulling her closer, asking for more, and for once it wasn’t all drugs and sex but real, genuine desire. Her venom was flowing but it wasn’t enough for this kind of reaction, not so soon.

_Have to get her out of these clothes before I rip them open with my fangs._

**_Need claws._ **

_You! Well. You're not wrong. But stay out of this. Please._

Her panther left her alone with one last thought,  ** _Be nice to Cupcake._**

_I will._

She turned, climbing blindly onto her bed before bending to deposit Laura on the covers. Carmilla felt Laura’s hands running up under her shirt, along the skin of her back, as she pulled back from the kiss to fumble with the button-down shirt, managing the first six buttons before her impatient eagerness had her pulling the hem up and over Laura’s head. Sadly, this pulled Laura’s hands off her own body but, once rewarded with the sight of the satin bra, Carmilla didn’t mind at all.

She rubbed her palms over the smooth surface, feeling the erect nipples through the cloth as Laura moved into her touch, head falling back despite the hands busily tugging at Carmilla’s shirt.

“Off,” Laura almost growled.

The vampire laughed in delight, “So demanding! _”_

Carmilla shucked her shirt and the bra under it, then wriggled a hand behind Laura’s back to release the fabric keeping those soft mounds of delicious flesh captive. Once they were freed, she bent to run her tongue along the marks the bra had left on the underside of one breast, nipping with still-human teeth and savoring the scent and taste of Laura’s skin, barely salty from their jaunt to the library.

Laura’s heartbeat was loudest here, just left of the sternum where the breast began, and she sucked a bright bruise into the skin to mark the spot as Laura’s heart accelerated under her lips. She groaned at the sound of all that blood, mere inches away, then looked up to see Laura watching her with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She smirked, then continued her path, moving over to trace the other underboob.

_There’s no rush. I wonder if you’ll beg me if I take my time to taste every inch of you. I hope you will._

Carmilla was having fun. It was strange, because it wasn’t the bloody, conquering sort of fun to which she was accustomed, but instead it was deeper, richer somehow. Every little sound Laura made, every shift of her body, every gasp spiked a sympathetic frisson of pleasure that drove her ever forward to the next touch, and the next, and the next. A lick here, a scraping of blunt teeth there, circling around and around but never closing her lips on the dark, excited tips of Laura’s nipples, then down across abs that flexed and rippled under her mouth as she kissed, licked, and bit the skin down to Laura’s jeans. A hand had woven itself into her hair somewhere along the way and now she looked up to see the arousal unfurling in Laura’s eyes.

She smiled against the skin, “I did say I’d peel you out of your clothes, remember?”

She flicked the button open and tugged the zipper down, watching Laura’s pupils flex and grow as she slid fingers down betwixt skin and underwear before pulling them down to her feet and off, enjoying the shift of Laura’s body as she bridged up to help. Then the damp, sharp aroma of unrestrained arousal punched her, overwhelming in its intensity, and a shudder traveled up her spine. Her patient, seductive plans began to unravel against a wave of primal need to taste that bouquet, to swallow slick fluid, to delve deeper for more, and then to bite into a vein and taste the lust running through Laura’s veins. Her sinuses _ached_ with the backed-up pressure behind her fangs, her instincts urging her to just let go and let it push them down into place. She was kneeling between Laura’s legs, eyes closed, bending ever more deeply downwards to get closer to the source of her need, when Laura’s voice pulled her back to herself.

“Wait, wait,” Laura asked as she reached down to tug on Carmilla’s belt loops, “please, take these off first.”

Carmilla looked up from her trance, a little dazed, and growled half-heartedly, but she assembled the scraps of her self-control to stand up by the side of the bed as she went to unbutton her jeans. Laura surprised her again, pulling herself up to kneel on the bed in front of her.

The human girl looked up through her eyelashes and put her own hands over Carmilla’s. “Let me?”

The sight of Laura, naked, kneeling in front of her and wanting to take her pants off did _things_ , hot, needy things, deep in Carmilla’s core. Not trusting her voice, she nodded and let her hands fall to her sides. Laura smiled up her and leaned in to kiss a sharp peak of protruding hip bone as she unbuttoned the jeans, sending a wave of prickling excitement over Carmilla’s skin.

Carmilla held herself still with an effort and watched Laura’s mouth move lower as she pushed the waistband down, grazing the top of her underwear, and she felt teeth bite lightly, teasingly into her. Every touch was like the first, electric tingles arcing and uniting in a growing pressure in her pelvis. She hissed out a breath as fingers tucked into her panties and tugged them down with the jeans, kisses and bites trailing the cloth as it was slowly peeled down her body.

Laura looked up at her again, that damned enticing curiosity mixed with an enthusiastic nervousness that was frankly endearing. “Before you bite me, before I lose myself completely, can I touch you? I’ve only really fooled around before, and I want to see what I’m doing this time.”

Carmilla’s entire core clenched into a spike of agonized _want_ at the idea. It had been so long since someone had touched her _willingly_ , without coercion and a healthy dose of intravenous venom, that she hadn’t realized how badly she needed it. Every caress Laura had laid on her skin had been a revelation – what would happen when she touched other, more sensitive places?

Carmilla needed to know, “fuck, Cupcake, you can do anything you want to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I wonder what Laura's gonna do? In many ways, this is going to be a first for both of them.
> 
> Find out next time, lovely buttercups, and thanks for reading!


	8. I is for Intrepid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Journeywoman Adventurer Laura Hollis embarks on her first cave-diving expedition under the close supervision of Master Spelunker Carmilla Karnstein. What will she find? Tune in and see!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please keep all appendages inside the filthtrain until it comes to a complete and utter orgasm.

**Last time, on _Venom_ :**

Laura looked up at her again, that damned enticing curiosity mixed with an enthusiastic nervousness that was frankly endearing. “Before you bite me, before I lose myself completely, can I touch you? I’ve only really fooled around before, and I want to see what I’m doing this time.”

Carmilla’s entire core clenched into a spike of agonized  _want_ at the idea. It had been so long since someone had touched her  _willingly_ , without coercion and a healthy dose of intravenous venom, that she hadn’t realized how badly she needed it. Every caress Laura had laid on her skin had been a revelation – what would happen when she touched other, more sensitive places?

Carmilla needed to know, “fuck, Cupcake, you can do anything you want to me.”

**Now:**

Carmilla stepped out of her pooled clothes to stand bare in front of this tiny, brave girl that she’d…not conquered, that she’d _invited_ to her bed. She’d get back to the conquering in a little while. But first – Laura’s hands landed on her breasts, tentative at first as she tested their softness. Her fingertips glided across the skin and then pressed deep into the plush tissue with a more confident grip.

Carmilla’s nipples just _barely_ grazed the ridges of Laura’s palm. A spike of almost-pain shivered over her skin as her aureolae knotted themselves into tight whorls, encircling the aching, engorged flesh. Laura touched one, rolling it lightly between finger and thumb as Carmilla scrambled to brace herself against the feeling, then leaned forward and wrapped her lips around it. Carmilla felt another jolt rocket from her breast to her cunt and had to put a hand to one of Laura’s shoulders to keep herself upright.

 _Fuck, she’s barely grazing me and I can’t stand straight._

Then that tongue, so clever and fast (and frequently annoying) with speech, flicked against the tip and a “fuck,” escaped Carmilla’s lips.

Emboldened, Laura did it again, and again, and Carmilla’s fingers dug into the muscle she gripped, pushing her chest forward into Laura’s mouth. She could smell Laura’s shampoo wafting up to her nose with the underlying damp musk of arousal. Teeth lightly bit her, tugging playfully as the tongue lashed and her focus narrowed to the sharp, pleasurable electricity of the sensation. 

“God, just like that,” Carmilla’s hand migrated into Laura’s hair, cradling the back of her head as she tried to keep her close, keep that amazing stimulus on her nipple.

The mouth released her and her instincts screamed to restore the pressure, but then Laura moved over. The feeling of the warm, wet enclosure of her mouth on one side was a stark contrast to the cooling surface of the other, a dichotomy of sensation that warmed Carmilla’s skin and trickled down to her gut. Carmilla could feel her skin sensitizing itself, waking up still further to the possibility of touch, as the tickle of hair brushing against her stomach tightened her abs and lower, wetter things. 

Laura was so systematic in her exploration, concentrating on every twitch, every sound, every response. Carmilla could almost see the process in action as Laura catalogued every micron of skin, transcribing a map of her explorations into her memory. Laura’s erogenous cartography, measured with lips and tongue and teeth, traced its way under Carmilla’s breast. She mirrored the same trail Carmilla had forged earlier, across her ribcage to the sternum, then embarked down the valley of her abs to her belly button. 

Laura’s hand slid across the small of Carmilla’s back and tugged her onto the bed. Carmilla sat, then reclined on her elbows as that mouth returned to her skin. Carmilla stared down between her breasts, meeting Laura’s eyes when they flicked up to her face. A smile wrinkled them at the corners, and Carmilla felt that smile curving Laura’s lips against her stomach. She was hit by another rush of anticipatory lust as they began to move lower, and lower, and lower.

Laura pulled her mouth away with one last lick and sat up between Carmilla’s legs, coaxing her thighs apart with both hands as she stared down between them. Carmilla watched curiosity supplement lust in Laura’s face as a single finger peeled her open. Then her vision blurred as that finger was dragged across her clit. She growled at the new sensation, hips bucking up, and the finger paused then repeated the motion. Then it dragged over it again, still a too-light tease that redoubled the ache in Carmilla’s swollen lips.

_She’s new, I need to give her feedback. Nice feedback._

“More,” Carmilla growled, “I need more pressure. Circles around the clit are good –“

She stopped with a shudder as Laura tried it out, first soft, then more firm, then soft again and _fuck_ if the variety wasn’t delicious too. More pressure was added and she twitched away. 

“A little too much, but it was great right before.”

Laura settled to a slow rhythm, her eyes bright with interest when they rose to Carmilla’s face, “I like to tease myself, but you go right to business?”

The thought of Laura touching herself, here in this room, tightened things all over Carmilla’s body and made her clit twitch under Laura’s fingers. She arched her hips, the pleasure rising against the rhythm.

_You tease yourself, huh? I have a hunch._

She replied with a question, hearing how husky her voice had grown, “I like the thought of you teasing yourself, Cupcake. What do you think about?” 

Laura averted her eyes, a deep and sudden flush spreading from her neck to her face and up to her ears.

_Gotcha! You’ve touched herself and thought of me. You know I saw it in your face, too. Fucking glorious._

Laura blushed still harder, “oh, you know, things.”

_Ha! I’ll get it out of you later, sweet cheeks._

Carmilla raised an eyebrow, trying to keep her cool under the pulse of her arousal, “things, eh? I like teasing myself too, sometimes. But that’s not what I need right now. Go on, I know you want to.”

Carmilla tilted her hips up in invitation. Laura’s fingers circled her clit one last time, then slid lower. The focus that had slipped with the rising blush was reforming, recalibrating to this new terrain, and that intensity locked back in on Carmilla’s pussy when Laura dipped her fingertip inside for the first time. It was not nearly enough but somehow, with the way Laura was watching that finger sink into her, it was too much at the same time. Carmilla groaned and clenched down.

“God, you’re so wet,” Laura’s words were low and thick as she slid deeper, plumbing the hot, wet center of Carmilla’s need.

“For you,” popped out from _somewhere_ and Carmilla growled at herself.

_Don’t get so fucking sentimental. I am the night! I did enough damage by telling her she’s special to me._

She kept going, trying to repurpose the meaning of her response, “for you to use another finger, or two, hell three even. I like the stretch.”

Laura’s eyes narrowed for a second, not fooled by her save, but she obliged with another finger. Carmilla could feel them running along her inner walls, finding the places that made her eyes lose focus, and then Laura added another and the pleasant stretch started to pull her inexorably forward again. Laura’s fingers crooked into Carmilla’s front wall once and, when she ground against them in visceral reflex, they returned there again and again, picking up a pattern. Carmilla could hear herself panting as she matched Laura’s rhythm. Even centuries of undeath didn’t stop her body from breathing in automatic response to extremes of emotion or sensation, and this was _definitely_ an extreme sensation.

She gasped out, “fuck, Laura, right there, that’s good, faster.”

Laura obliged and Carmilla let her head fall back, concentrating on the incredible sensations stoking the tension inside her. Then, there was a firm thumb on her clit, circling it with the confident strokes from just before that sent her grabbing for the headboard, thrusting herself down against Laura’s surprising strength. She sensed her precipice, arriving _much_ sooner than she had anticipated.

Carmilla managed, “oh FUCK yes,” before the towering pressure snapped inside her. She came with a harsh groan, her spine popping with the spasm in her back as she felt her cunt clamp down. She could feel every knuckle and bone of Laura’s fingers inside her, still dragging against her sensitive spots, and her clit was a sharp, hot spike of agonized pleasure under constant assault as she flexed into a static crunch.

For long, weightless seconds she was immobilized, caught in the web of orgasm, until her stasis burst, sending her into a fast, twitching series of aftershocks from the continuing stimulation. She held out for three, four, five and then reached down to grab Laura’s wrist, stilling her movements because words wouldn’t come. A sixth aftershock momentarily froze her again before releasing her to melt back into the bed. The warm afterglow poured out in its wake, relaxing her limbs.

“Fuuuuck,” was all she could muster to say.

Laura leaned forward, expression warring between so many conflicting emotions Carmilla couldn’t parse any of them. “Carm, are you ok? Was it too much? Sorry I didn’t –“

Carmilla nodded, then shook her head at the rapid-fire questions. “I’m fantastic, it was just right, I just get sensitive and couldn’t word for a second. You’re a damn quick study, Creampuff.”

A proud little smile crinkled Laura’s eyes and started to develop into a full-blown, delighted grin as she stared down at Carmilla. “That was. I _liked_ that, a whole lot. Is it always like that? No of course it wouldn’t be, everyone’s different.” 

Carmilla shoved down a growl at the thought of Laura with everyone, her blood screaming, _MINE, she’s MINE!_ She stuffed it into a corner of her mind and shut the door.  _Not now, be patient._

Oblivious, Laura continued, “But the way you felt, how wet you got. Carm you got all over my hand, it was pooling in my palm, that was so hot, and you smell so good.” 

Laura stopped her chatter, looked down at her hand, brought it tentatively up to her face, and _licked_ it. Then she slid her fingers into her mouth and Carmilla could see her tongue scraping against the skin.

_Fuuuuck._

Carmilla pounced, sitting up and grabbing Laura’s thighs to pull her toward the top of the bed. Laura’s head bounced on the duvet, eyes startled as she looked up into Carmilla’s hungry gaze.

“I need to taste myself on your tongue,” was all the warning Carmilla gave before their lips met.

She poured herself into the kiss, tongue pushing in to meet a fierce contender, all fire and playful flicks that were flavored with Laura, Laura, Laura, sweet and warm, but now mixed with Carmilla’s own dark, heady musk. She groaned, pushing her tongue deeper, moving a hand down to squeeze and knead Laura’s breast so she could taste the gasp it caused. Hands pulled her close, one tangled in her hair and the other on her side. Kissing Laura was addictive. Her smell, her warmth, her life, her spirit, her blood pounding through her carotids and reverberating all the way into the arteries of her cheeks and tongue, all melded into a gestalt that made the kiss an end in itself.

Carmilla propped her body up with one arm, knees pushing Laura’s thighs apart as she teased the insides of Laura’s teeth with her tongue. She let her hand roam across smooth, warm skin, the muscles underneath rippling as they craned up to meet her touch like friendly cats, and brought her short nails dragging down Laura’s abs. Carmilla bit Laura’s bottom lip, tugging slightly before releasing it to join their mouths together once more. The body under her writhed, legs wrapping around her waist as her sudden offensive unlocked Laura’s restraint, driving gasping little moans into her mouth as her hand stroked lower, and lower, and finally found coarse hair and zeroed in to claim her prize. 

The shocked moan that Laura gave when Carmilla’s fingers found the sodden mess of her pussy matched Carmilla’s own groan of excitement. This girl _wanted_ her with passion and fire and lust for discovery, and she was going to give her what she needed. Carmilla broke from the kiss and smirked down into Laura’s glazed eyes, skating her fingers so, so delicately over the swollen bulb of her clit. Laura tried to push up into her hand but she kept the pressure light, too light, dancing away only to come back once more. 

Carmilla’s hungry gaze took in Laura’s pout and she grinned, sharp and predatory. “You told me you like to tease yourself, so I’m going to tease you. Now, who do you think about when you tease yourself, cutie? Tell me your fantasy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Laura _cave_ to Carmilla's commands? Find out next time, intrepid Creampuffs, and happy spelunking!


	9. D is for Dominating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pleased with Journeywoman Adventurer Laura's progress on the introductory course, Master Spelunker Carmilla takes the lead to show her how deep this rabbit hole can go. But first, Laura must confess her deepest, darkest solo cavediving secret. Will she surrender? Tune in and see!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The filthtrain is not responsible for any pulled muscles and/or dehydration suffered during the ride.

**Last time on _Venom_ :**

Carmilla broke from the kiss and smirked down into Laura’s glazed eyes, skating her fingers so, so delicately over the swollen bulb of her clit. Laura tried to push up into her hand but she kept the pressure light, too light, dancing away only to come back once more. 

Carmilla’s hungry gaze took in Laura’s pout and she grinned, sharp and predatory. “You told me you like to tease yourself, so I’m going to tease you. Now, who do you think about when you tease yourself, cutie? Tell me your fantasy.”

**Now:**

The flow of venom had quieted somewhat as Carmilla had focused on Laura’s ministrations. Now that she was taking control, the sheer predatory thrill of being on top had reinvigorated her glands, flooding her mouth with expectant, thick secretions ready to subdue and arouse. For once, however, she didn’t want to use it all right away. She could sense it wasn’t crucial to drug her prey, that she could stir the flames of Laura’s arousal, of her obedience, without it. It would be far more satisfying to use it as a condiment. She swallowed it down and flicked her fingertip across the head of Laura’s clit, sparking an answer to her question. 

“Oh my god,” Laura blurted, eyes darting to the sides but unable to escape Carmilla entirely, that delicious blush reasserting itself, “uh, I, um, you know, I look up erotica.”

_You are a terrible liar, Cupcake._

Carmilla pulled her fingers away with a quirk of her eyebrow and Laura tried to jerk up to meet them, crying, “wait, don’t stop!”

Laura was trapped by her own desires, her own words, her own dirty secrets. Carmilla loved that Laura tried to fight it, that she tried to make the world into a new shape: one where she wouldn’t have to admit that she’d touched herself to the mere idea of Carmilla over her, inside her, consuming her. But Carmilla knew this girl, knew how she thought, how she felt, and knew also that she would cave to this sweetest of torments. 

Carmilla took her time, bringing her mouth to one side to bite Laura’s earlobe. She deliberately sank her blunt human teeth into the soft tissue before pulling slowly away, letting them drag down its surface to scrape away her saliva and leave just the slightest trace of venom. Laura was panting under her, undone by the tease, by the seduction, and ripe for conquest.

 _There’s nowhere to run._  

“We both know there’s more, Cupcake, you should just confess and get what you need.” She purred, “spill.” At the last word, she stroked once up the length of Laura’s clit and away. 

Laura’s body jerked with the touch, coming up off the bed and trying to pull Carmilla down to her with the legs wrapped around her body, but Carmilla kneed one of Laura’s legs off and pinned it to the bed with her shin. The frustrated whine was almost comical.

_Maybe you need help remembering how it goes._

“There’s something you imagine, when you’re alone, that sets your hands slowly, inevitably, caressing your own skin. You put one hand up under your shirt, squeezing your nipple, and trace the other down your stomach to just barely,” Carmilla let her fingers graze slick flesh again, circling slowly and darting away when Laura tried to push against her fingers. 

She nipped the skin under Laura’s ear, “ah, now, behave, don’t move or you get nothing. You just _barely_ touch yourself, but you’re already soaking wet and every brush,” she started to tease again, and Laura trembled but did not rise up against her hand, letting Carmilla just spread a layer of viscous arousal across the hot surface of her clit, into the tiny folds around the head, just under the hood, “feels like the first time you’ve ever been touched.”

Carmilla let her fingers traverse a tight, slow circle around Laura’s clit and relished the whimper of pleasure that echoed from Laura’s throat. Moving her oral attentions to the space between windpipe and muscle where the pulse was strongest, she closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against Laura’s neck, feeling the blood jump against her skin. She repeated her teasing circle, following it with a slow long stroke up the middle, still so gentle that it barely depressed the surface. Laura was quivering with the battle between her need to move and the knowledge that she’d lose Carmilla’s touch if she did.

_You are fucking fantastic, you feel tense as a bowstring. I think you’re ready._

Carmilla whispered, “tell me.”

“You,” Laura shuddered with the breathy admission, her resistance melting.

Carmilla’s cunt clenched at the word, sudden and hard as an aftershock, sending a dribble of fluid oozing along her labia. While she’d guessed that Laura had masturbated to her, hearing the actual confession was so much better. Carmilla circled Laura’s clit encouragingly once more, felt a breath hitch as it left Laura’s body with a moan attached. She knew that she didn’t even need to deny Laura again, the dam had broken.

“Me what?” she crooned and kissed her old bites, tongue darting out to taste the fading wounds.

“It’s you, I imagined kissing you, being under you. I thought about how you would hold me down and touch me.” Laura was rambling, panting through her words, “I thought about **this** and I _had_ to tease myself because if I didn’t it ended far too soon. But I didn’t know it would be like this, so much more,” her voice was breaking, “please, Carm, I need –“

Carmilla didn’t wait for Laura to finish her plea, just slid her soaked fingers down, firmly now, gliding around Laura’s clit to pin its full length between the pads of fingers and thumb. She felt the firm core of it flex against them as she grasped and _tugged_. Laura’s gasp was so gratifying, the jerk of her hips all reflexive need. Carmilla counterbalanced her movement, opening and pushing down when Laura thrust forward and gripping and tugging when she retreated.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Creampuff,” Carmilla purred, “since you were such a good girl.” The buck of Laura’s hips was sudden, out of rhythm, and Carmilla’s low chuckle sparked another stray jerk against her hand. “I imagine you here, under me, when I fuck myself too.”

She fielded another unruly thrust in response to her words and pinned Laura more firmly to the bed to continue her work without disruption. Laura’s dismayed groan was beautiful, so frustrated and needy, and her clit twitched again. 

_Definitely need to tie her down sometime, she loves being helpless. Hell, I love being in control of her._

Carmilla kissed her way up Laura’s neck, scraping her teeth along tendon and muscle until she reached the corner of her jaw. Her lips and tongue caressed along it, back to Laura’s mouth, all the while continuing that slow, steady jerk of Laura’s clit.

When their lips met, Laura’s tongue darted out to her, twining against her, begging for more of Carmilla against her, inside her. The taste of Laura was so rich and familiar and excited. The little sounds she made with every pull were intoxicating, vibrating in their mouths, in their shared air. Their saliva mixed, the dry, cold pine of Carmilla’s poisons playing counterpoint to warm, bright, spiced chocolate and cinnamon. 

 _It’s time_.

Carmilla let her fingers fall away from Laura’s clit, ignoring a betrayed-sounding squeak at the sudden neglect. Her attention was riveted to her finger, traveling downward to the well of Laura's arousal. She swallowed Laura’s startled moan as that finger slid smoothly into her tight cunt. Laura clenched, so delightfully slick and hot around her, and even forgot to kiss back when Carmilla placed her thumb back on the head of her clit and made one smooth rotation.

She pulled back and thrust, pulling her restraining leg away from Laura’s thigh and using her own hips to push her hand forward. Laura’s pelvis flexed up into her as she did it again, and again. Legs wrapped around her and Laura moved with her, urgent and compliant and _so fucking eager_. Carmilla had free reign in Laura’s mouth, her tongue plundering every corner as Laura choked out shocked mewls and gasps of sensory overload. She still swallowed her own venom when it grew too rich, keeping Laura able to participate fully. For now.

_Fuck I’m finally inside her, fucking her, I love this. She loves every fucking iota of it._

Carmilla attempted to insert another finger, but the too-tight entrance and sudden yelp warned her to wait. She shivered in anticipation and kept thrusting, kept stroking her tongue against the roof of Laura’s mouth.

 _Soon, be patient, but soon._  

Laura’s fingernails were digging into her back, her ass, trying to pull her into a harder, faster rhythm. She obliged, every thrust bumping her thumb up to grind along Laura’s clit as she hooked into the front wall on every pull. The panting mess of a girl underneath her was crying out at every heavy breath, hips dancing up to meet her again and again as she pounded into her.

The eroticism was overwhelming. The medley of squeaking bedsprings; the indescribably filthy squelches of Laura’s wet cunt accepting every thrust; and the torrent of unformed, unselfconscious, blissful _noise_ pouring out into Carmilla’s mouth all fed into Carmilla’s own state of controlled, libidinous fervor. And the _smells_ , the miasma of sweat and musk and Laura, sang to her senses. Carmilla reveled in the slide aromatic fluids leaking out onto their thighs, how her own was mixing with Laura’s where they ground together, and the feeling of the peaks of Laura’s nipples rubbing against her skin combined with the pleasure of hers where they did the same.

Carmilla felt the flutters of Laura’s impending orgasm around her finger and broke her mouth away to watch, staring into passion-blown pupils in eyes that were shivering upwards with every thrust, as she growled her command, “come for me, Laura, come _now_.”

Laura’s eyes rolled up at the order, losing all focus, and she released a howl that choked off into a strangled grunt of effort. The flutter around Carmilla’s finger snapped into a solid, strong clamp, walls pulling together in a tight hot tunnel. It tried but was unable to hold her in place as it filled with more slick fluid and she continued to grind and push and stroke. She felt vicious triumph as Laura’s body curled up against her, legs clamping around Carmilla’s waist as her body convulsed and froze in blissful stasis. Carmilla kept thrusting, kept winding up that twitching, swollen bundle of nerves as she drank in the sight of Laura surrendering to passion: her mouth open, eyes unfocused, face twisted in painful ecstasy.

Then the limbo of climax snapped and Laura’s head jerked back, her body uncoiling for only a fraction of a second before it flexed again, and again, and again under Carmilla’s hand.

Carmilla heard herself speaking again, rambling out a torrent of unadulterated praise, “you’re so good, so fucking good, you’re so beautiful when you come for me, god fuck Laura you’re amazing.”

Laura whimpered and jerked, possibly too sensitive, but then her body curled again and Carmilla felt something stronger than an aftershock pulse around her. She stared down, watching the second orgasm catch Laura as fingernails tore across her back from the convulsive tightening of muscles. Then, and only then, Carmilla took her finger off of Laura’s clit and let her fall back in post-orgasmic lassitude to the bed.

Carmilla stayed above Laura, trying to absorb the magnitude of their coupling with sight and touch and smell. Their skin had peeled apart as Laura went limp, the human sweat that had glued them together chilling their skin into goosebumps, as her girl’s chest heaved in great lungfuls of air. Her hand remained where she had left it, finger still feeling the intermittent flex and relax of aftershocks, and she was covered halfway up to her elbow with cum that slowly tightened the skin as it dried.

The smell, the power, the physicality of it all was so exhilarating, driving her mouth to fill again and again with a reactive mixture of saliva and venom that she had to swallow down or let drip out of her mouth onto the girl below. Her muscles tensed with the urge to take Laura right now, see what she tasted like now that Carmilla had wrenched two orgasms out of her cunt. But instead, she decided to be patient, and crafty, and use the skills that she’d proven to work on Laura to make her want it too.

Carmilla looked into Laura’s glazed eyes, her own finger still inside the girl, and gently circled her thumb around Laura’s clit again, and again, and again to watch shivers wrack her muscles.

“Cupcake,” her voice was raspy with desire, “I want to break you open so you can take more of me, so I can fuck you properly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, Carmilla wants to fuck Laura _properly_?! What would she call what just fucking happened?! Find out next time, adventuresome Cupcakes, and gird. your. loins.


	10. E is for Explosive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion of our mini-adventure awaits! Carmilla goes where no one has gone before, tastes what no one will ever taste again, and has an absolute feast.

**Last time on _Venom:_**

“Cupcake,” her voice was raspy with desire, “I want to break you open so you can take more of me, so I can fuck you properly.”

**Now:**

Laura’s eyes drifted back into focus at Carmilla’s words, wide and blissful from her orgasm and yet just a little _scared_ and it set Carmilla’s blood aflame just to see it.

She continued her proposal, “I can make it so good for you. I’ll fill my mouth with venom and fuck it up into your pussy with my tongue until you’re ready to come in my mouth. I’ll force my fingers into you, tear your hymen, stretch you open, and then I’ll bite you, right here,” she stroked the crease of Laura’s leg where the femoral vein ran, next to the tapping pulse of the femoral artery, “and fuck you as hard as you deserve.”

Laura was clearly conflicted, her eyebrows drawn together. Her chest still rose and fell with deep sweeps of breath, inciting gentle movements of her breasts. Carmilla’s venom was still filling her mouth, oozing out in twin resinous streams. The flavor made her salivary glands twitch and twang with activity. She swallowed again, postponing the urge to just take what she wanted and damn the consequences. It was getting easier with practice.

_I’m doing this your way, Cupcake. Say yes, it will be amazing._

Laura licked her lips and asked, her voice scratchy, “will it hurt?”

“Yes, but it hurt when I bit you before. I think you might like a little pain with your pleasure, don’t you?” Carmilla drew her finger out and then pushed it back in, feeling Laura’s walls flex around her. “Imagine how good it will feel to be stretched open, every centimeter of your cunt full and aching to be fucked hard." 

Laura blushed at the crude words, her gaze flicking away and then back as Carmilla repeated the motion, adding a curl of her fingertip to drag it along Laura’s front wall, which earned her a little moan. She circled her thumb, slowly, and did it again before she thrust a little harder, faster. Laura was so wet and so sensitive, prepared for more.

Carmilla pushed, “imagine how it will feel when I climax from drinking your orgasm and my venom pulses into your veins. I could almost come just thinking about it. Creampuff, say yes.”

Carmilla’s venom glands were weeping faster, now, so firm and tight with their excited contractions that her cheekbones ached with it. She held her fangs back, unwilling to maneuver around them if Laura said yes.

“Yes,” Laura swallowed and repeated it, “yes, you can do that.”

Carmilla stared down at her human girl, at the flutter of pulse in her neck, and wanted more.

_What are you made of, Cupcake?_

“Ask me nicely, and you can have it.” Laura’s blush deepened, creeping up her neck from her chest, and she looked away while opening her mouth to speak. Before she could, Carmilla thrust into her harder still. She roughened her tone, “you _will_ look at me when you beg to be fucked.”

Laura’s back arched, abs standing out against her skin, and her eyelids fluttered as her pussy clenched. Carmilla knew for sure, then, that this was a path she could take to their mutual satisfaction. Laura was so independent-minded, so on top of her shit, that she secretly relished being out of control. She just needed someone strong enough to push her out of the driver’s seat and take her for a ride.

Carmilla pressed her advantage, “what do you say, Cupcake?”

Laura’s eyes flashed to hers, huge, excited, and still deliciously scared around the edges, and did what Carmilla had ordered her to do. “Yes, please, I want that. I want you to, Carm. Please?”

That was enough, for now. Carmilla smiled and stroked her finger along the inside of Laura’s pussy one more time, “you’re such a good girl.” Her grin widened at the little flutter around her finger after her words.

_Such a good girl. I’m gonna eat you alive._

Carmilla shifted further down the bed, pulling out of Laura to spread her thighs with both hands. Laura whimpered from that vulnerable position, eyes catching on Carmilla as she stared down into the girl’s unconcealed pussy for the first time. 

_You smell so fucking amazing._

“Sorry, I didn’t trim or anything, I didn’t think –“ Carmilla silenced Laura’s chatter with a shake of her head.

“You’re perfect,” Carmilla breathed, and leaned in to take her first taste.

Laura was soaked, her curls matted and dark. Carmilla used both thumbs to spread her labia apart. She swept her tongue out with a broad, long lick, gliding up the center of Laura’s cunt from opening to clit and collecting her first sample of Laura’s essence. She heard a gasped moan from above as her own groan echoed out. The flavor was incredible, a sweet and spicy taste that she’d craved from the first moment she’d smelled Laura’s arousal. Laura’s legs twitched once, still stretched apart where she’d put them, and she repeated the lick to make them flex again. 

Her glands squeezed down with a slow, pulsing ache and another flood of venom entered her mouth, trickling down to be left in the wake of her tongue. Laura shivered as Carmilla sunk deeper, burying her face, and focused on the clit. She slid her tongue up its middle, up under the hood to tease the tip, and felt hands bury themselves in her hair.

“Oh my god, Carm, oh my _god_ what are you doing?” Laura’s voice was full of breathy wonder.

Carmilla looked up through her eyelashes, dragging lingering licks all over Laura’s clit, and met the dark, dark pools of Laura’s eyes. She was crunched forward slightly, staring down at the vampire with an awed expression, muscles on her face flexing and relaxing with every lick. Carmilla smiled, humming her happiness into Laura’s cunt, and the girl jerked against her mouth.

_Fuck this is one of my favorite things._

Carmilla used one arm across Laura’s hipbones to hold her still and went to work. She pushed her whole face against Laura, coating everything up to her nose in hot thick slickness, and took thin, silky lips and clit all inside. She mouthed them, using her lips and teeth around the outside as she gently sucked and ran her tongue against and through and over them.

She coated everything with her saliva, her venom, just as she drank down Laura’s own juices, feeling the mixed fluids leaking away under her chin. Laura’s panting gasps and mutters of overwhelmed pleasure washed over her, filling her with self-satisfied purpose. Her glands contracted again, and again, until the evergreen was all she could taste, coating every surface, and then she pulled back to scoop her tongue down into the welling pool of Laura’s desire, refreshing its flavor in her mouth.

She ducked her head and opened still further, plunging her tongue deep into Laura’s cunt. The hands in her hair flexed and Laura cried out, desperate and eager. Carmilla lingered there, her still-human teeth resting against the top and bottom of Laura’s opening, relishing the intense ocean spice of Laura’s pussy as she pushed venom inside, stroking everywhere her tongue could reach. Indulgent, she felt around Laura’s entrance for the thin membrane of her hymen, testing its edge with her tongue.

_I’m the first person who will ever touch you here, like this. I’m the only one who will ever make you bleed from here and drink it from the source. You’re mine._

The possessive thoughts drove another hungry squeeze of venom. She laved it into and around Laura’s tight opening, her saliva and Laura’s own slick arousal carrying it ever deeper. She could stay here for hours, marinating Laura in narcotics, but Carmilla wanted her to be completely aware of who had taken her, who owned her. She moved up again, her tongue moving in wide stripes interposed with tender sucks and licks of Laura’s most delicate, vulnerable flesh.

Despite the restraining arm, Laura was humping up against her face with little desperate moans and pants, her hands knotted in Carmilla’s hair and tugging her close. Carmilla moved in, sucking Laura’s clit into her mouth and swirling her tongue around it while she held it trapped between lips and just the edges of her teeth.

“Ohmygod, fuck,” Laura panted out and Carmilla felt smug pride fill her chest.

_Finally got you to curse._

She moved harder, faster, lashing the head of Laura’s clit with the tip of her tongue between circles, sliding her face forward along Laura’s whole pussy with every push of hips from below. Carmilla pulled her free hand up and slid a finger into Laura again, relishing the moans and quivers that bounced around Laura’s body at the new sensation. She felt Laura’s clit pulse against her tongue every time her finger crooked into the front wall and synched her sucks and licks to those moments, feeling Laura’s hips match her rhythm.

_I want you to come in my mouth._

Carmilla amped up her speed, her intensity, licking and sucking and biting the edges of Laura’s clit as she thrust inside, feeling the slick glide of Laura’s flesh against her face as they moved in reciprocating tandem. She felt the pulse of contraction on her tongue as Laura rose up to meet her. Laura arched and froze, locked into position by the impending orgasm, her moans ascending in volume and frequency as Carmilla buried her face deeper and tormented the little nub in her mouth, using all her tricks and the strength of her inhuman tongue to push, push, push her human over the edge. Laura’s body spasmed under her, almost throwing her off before she reasserted her hold. 

Then, finally, Carmilla made her move, coating her fingers in Laura’s viscous juices and her own secretions. While Laura was still twitching and reactive from her orgasm, the vampire positioned her hand at Laura’s entrance and pushed inwards. Carmilla snarled her victory against the clit in her mouth, feeling the resistance give way at the moment she ruptured Laura’s innocence. The thrill of conquest pumped a shot of venom out as Laura yelped and tried to writhe away from the pain, pulling against Carmilla’s hold, trying to push her head away. Carmilla ignored her and pushed inside with three fingers, then four, making sure her path was opened completely and feeling the muscles of Laura’s cunt stretched apart around her for the very first time. Satisfied, she pulled them out to slide her tongue into Laura again.

The mix of blood and Laura’s cum was intoxicating, enthralling, the perfect mélange of spice to her palate. She growled and purred, lapping, scraping her tongue along the torn edge of Laura’s hymen, her own venom leaking out against tender flesh and sliding down along her lips. The blood was saturated with Laura’s orgasmic hormones, dancing across Carmilla’s palate as she probed for more. She felt the anxious hands in her hair relaxing, the drugs she was sinking into Laura’s pussy soothing the pain and bringing Laura back to a state of arousal. Laura’s hands began to pull her closer, wound up by her ministrations, and she pulled her face away with one last lingering lick to look up and see how her girl had endured. 

Flushed, wild-eyed, and disheveled, Laura stared back down at her.

Carmilla smirked, “don’t you look like a virgin sacrifice.”

She closed her eyes and relaxed the muscles holding her fangs back, feeling the aching _push_ of swollen tissue and stretch in their canals as they slid into place with a click against her human canines, locking down with another clench. The ivory cooled from the air, then warmed as hot venom flowed from her glands, tunneling to ooze out the pinprick holes hidden behind their sharp points.

Laura was watching when she opened her eyes again, a fascinated look in her lust-darkened eyes despite the drugs pumping through her veins. Carmilla could see the questions stirring in Laura’s mind, wheels turning as she pondered Carmilla’s equipment, and decided to head her off with another dip into that delicious pussy.

She bent down, then paused, “Cupcake, don’t move or pull on me while I do this, or I’ll cut you by accident.”

Laura nodded hurriedly, removing her hands from Carmilla’s hair, and Carmilla smiled. “Good girl.”

The flow of blood had slowed, diluted still further by Laura’s replenished lust, and Carmilla hummed as she scooped the last of it into her mouth, careful not to puncture the delicate flesh of Laura’s pussy. Then, she sliced her tongue open on one fang, ignoring the searing pain, and pushed it into Laura’s cunt as her thick blood wept from the deep, long gouge. When her tongue healed she sliced it again, and again, applying fresh layers to Laura’s wounded opening, numbing the pain still further as she sped the healing process.

Excited hunger gnawed at her, freed by the act of extending her fangs. It was clawing upwards from the depths where she’d stuffed it for safekeeping, sharpening her hearing until Laura’s pulse thundered like a welcoming drum. She cleaned Laura’s pussy with two long passes of her tongue, then kissed to the side along the soft skin of an inner thigh.

As Carmilla slid a finger back inside, Laura tensed, possibly anticipating pain, but she relaxed and then arched with a gasp when Carmilla’s thumb landed back on her clit. Carmilla dragged the tips of her fangs up the curve of Laura’s thigh, just grazing the skin, joining them with her tongue as she left trails of venom along her path. The muscles under her mouth flexed as she added a second finger to Laura’s pussy, feeling the walls around them shiver with reactive spasms.

“Oh,” Laura sighed, and Carmilla took in the way her head had fallen back, hands curled into the bedding. She pulled back, added a third finger, and watched Laura’s hips move into her push once, then again.

_You’re ready._

Carmilla reached the crease of Laura’s thigh, the thick ligament binding pelvis and pubis and the vessels that ran beneath. She pinned Laura’s leg down with her free hand and finally bit down as she thrust into Laura with a hard, fast push. The resultant burn in her sinuses was intense, the long-forestalled bite releasing a gush of venom straight into the vein before she eagerly stretched the wounds and gave one long, slow suck. 

Carmilla felt euphoric, transcendent, and energized all at once as she tasted her careful work, the shepherding of Laura’s body through orgasm after orgasm, in the rich, deep complexity of flavor. She swallowed and moaned, chewing her fangs into the bite, as her own body and glands clenched. This wasn’t the fleeting high of a quick bump-and-grind, wasn’t just one moment of pleasure echoed in her victim’s blood. This was a feast, oxytocin and opioids saturating Laura’s blood, somehow more satisfying and intense than the fear and adrenaline Carmilla loved.

She pushed into Laura’s pussy again and again, feeling the slow, viscous trickle of liquid dripping down her wrist as she sank in up to her knuckles. Her next mouthful of blood sent tingles along her spine, pooling in her lower back and rocketing to clit and nipples. Her vision was too sharp, nose too sensitive, every touch screaming through her as it built on her growing high. The pounding of Laura’s blood through the neighboring artery was so fast, so strong. 

She could feel every detail as her fingers stroked along Laura’s insides: the resisting, smooth walls that stretched so gloriously every time Carmilla pushed in; the rough, swollen tissue just inside the girl’s front wall that made Laura arch and buck with every hooking exit; the puckered knob of her cervix and the soft, giving crevice beyond; and the thick wetness of Laura’s cum and Carmilla’s own venom pooling between her fingers.

Laura’s chest was heaving, every exhale sending out a cry of overwhelmed pleasure. With every cycle of suck, swallow, inject, Carmilla could feel Laura’s cunt clamp down on her fingers as quivers rocketed through her girl’s body. She groaned as she tasted the wine-dark energy of Laura’s impending orgasm, rolling under the blood like a leviathan roused from its slumber, a shadow of ultimate pleasure cutting through the storm. Again and again she plumbed the depths of Laura’s body as she drank her down, feeling her body summoning its own kraken, its tentacles wrapping around her more tightly with every suck. 

Laura shoved herself down against Carmilla’s thrusts and screamed as her whole body went rigid, her cries choking with reactive agony. Carmilla ground into the tunnel that had trapped her fingers, twisting and rubbing as her thumb kept tormenting Laura’s clit, and then she took another drink.

Carmilla jerked, whining through her nose, as she broke apart under the maelstrom of Laura’s orgasm. Her body had been building her own tension, was pregnant with the possibility of climax. That last swallow of blood, laced with urgent, hot release, blew it to pieces. She seized with its strength, every muscle in her body straining against its opposite, desperately trying not to rip Laura’s thigh open as her entire world shrank to the deep, dark gravity of her cunt balanced with the bright, sharp pain of her sinuses releasing.

Laura’s sobbing cries rang out as the girl bucked and writhed under Carmilla in another, venom-driven orgasm, clamping down again, and again, crushing against Carmilla’s fingers. Carmilla was locked down on the one thigh, holding it in place, but the movements still jogged her fangs and released another gush of blood into her mouth. She tasted it and felt the shock of contraction knot itself into her cunt again, wrenching out a long moan. With it came another ricochet as her venom burst into Laura, dragging the girl down into another convulsive orgasm. Carmilla pulled her mouth away hurriedly and sealed the bites with her blood before she was tempted to take another, and another.

_Fuck. Fuuuuck._

Carmilla was trembling, overstimulated muscles twitching. She slid herself up with an effort alongside Laura, running her fingers through that wealth of sun-streaked hair and pushing sweaty strands away from her girl’s face. Laura’s hand came up to cling to her shoulder and, somehow, it made sense for Carmilla to lie against her, skin touching skin wherever possible, until the girl was buried in her arms. She was so warm and smelled amazing, like cookies and blood and sex. Carmilla tucked her hand under Laura’s side and let her body relax, feeling the pings and zaps of her nerves still firing in pulses along her pelvis and thighs.

Carmilla drifted, full and happy and satiated, letting the steady pulse of Laura’s heartbeat lull her into a peaceful doze. She dreamed, something pleasant for once, but the ephemeral traces fled from her recollection as Laura groaned and shifted against her. She cracked an eye open. The sun had set while they had been busy and it was some indeterminate time between evening and midnight. They had shifted during her nap so that she rested on her back, Laura wrapped around her side and torso like a determined monkey, and Carmilla ran her hand down the smooth skin of her back. 

“Hey,” she ventured, as Laura burrowed against her more tightly.

“Hey,” came out muffled against her skin, and then Laura yawned.

Carmilla chuckled, the movement bouncing Laura’s head on her chest, “I wore you out.”

“No,” came the immediate answer, followed by a pause before it was grudgingly corrected, “yes.” Another pause, “are we…cuddling? I didn’t think you’d be a cuddler.” 

Carmilla stiffened, an automatic, scathing, standoffish response almost escaping her before she shut it down.

_She doesn’t deserve that._

She forced herself to relax again and replied, “yeah, Cupcake, I think this is cuddling.”

“Good. I like it.” Laura sighed and rubbed her face against Carmilla’s skin, a move so reminiscent of a cat that it made Carmilla smile.

Carmilla didn’t know why she felt quite so happy about this situation, but she would take it. She pulled the covers over them both, petting Laura and listening to her pulse, feeling warm breath on her skin, as she slid back into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew I hope y'all love cunnilingus, fucking, and biting the way I do, 'cause DAMN if that wasn't hot as fuck to write. Happy fucking holidays, you filthy monsters. I love you all.
> 
> How will this change things between our heroes? Will Laura be sore and floaty? (Yes) Will Carmilla be self-satisfied? (Yes) Will there ever be more sex? (Guess) Find out next time, sordid Gingersnaps, and stuff your faces with holiday foods for me.


	11. R is for Resolute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla remembers why exactly she doesn't do things like this and then decides to do them anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This is important:** if you still have your hands in your pants from the previous chapter, you might want to skip this chapter. There’s some gross horror stuff embedded in here and I’d hate to ruin your buzz. Next chapter will get back to some fluff and plot and there will be more smut later, I promise. I got you, fam.

Sometime before dawn, Carmilla twitched awake, senses bright with the instantaneous awareness of the predator. Something was not quite right. She was warm, too warm, and a heavy weight ran along her side that was strangling one arm, numbing her fingers. A branch of that warm heaviness crossed her stomach, tucked under her side. She made a judicious inhalation and the scent of Laura’s hair, skin, blood, and sex calmed her. As she relaxed, memories from the previous night swirled up to the forefront of her mind in all their vivid, sordid clarity.

_Right. Oh, god, right._

A thrill ran through her at the thoughts, the images, of Laura under her, around her, inside her. She’d finally taken Laura, had fucked and devoured her, had claimed her in a way no one had ever done.

_She’s mine now. She even gave me permission. She’s mine, and I am going to keep her. Even if Mother comes here in **person** I will keep Laura. _

The thoughts were taboo, dangerous, and so very reckless that she could almost feel her long-dead heart racing in adrenaline-soaked excitement. In response, however, well-earned hesitations reared their heads, pointing out the fact that she’d fucked up. Once again she’d lost her head, all because of this rather impetuous, stubborn 19-year-old. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out how it had come to this.

_Why couldn’t I find a nice, intelligent girl who isn’t marked for death? Why do I even find Laura’s total lack of common sense endearing? She’s doomed because she’s putting herself in harm’s way despite all of my efforts, so why do I keep trying to get closer to her?_

Carmilla’s brain twisted and turned, fueled by the implanted, well-crafted fear of her Mother. She knew that her mind wouldn’t survive another stint in the coffin – even the thought made ice shiver down her spine. It had been Mother’s will that had kept her alive through the decades in the dark; she had felt the energy of undeath feeding into her, enough to prevent the bliss of unconsciousness without allowing her to heal or break free.

**Long ago:**

At first, she didn’t want to escape. Ell’s betrayal and subsequent doom had taken her vulnerable, hoping heart and dashed it to pieces. However, once the true torture began, she tried and failed to tear away the boards, tried to transform, tried to escape the monstrous fate her Mother had designed, all to no avail. She was forced to molder, to rot, alone in the dark.

The blood filling the coffin may have been a theatrical touch for the benefit of Mother’s other children, but it was also a torture for every one of Mircalla’s enhanced senses. When she was led into the room with the the coffin, she sniffed the air at the sight of all that blood. She had emptied her lungs in reactive horror, tried to deny, tried to pretend that it wasn’t drained from the handful of girls she’d delivered into her Mother’s hands. She had pretended until she was sealed inside, until the coffin stopped moving, until the sounds of the dirt covering her had faded completely away, trying to escape from the knowledge that she could just open her mouth to taste Ell one last time. When she caved in the cold stillness underground, she tasted the dark deaths-blood of her lovely, bright girl and finally cried, her tears swirling away into the spilled stuff of life.

Over the first few days, after it clotted, much of the liquid seeped away through the boards of her coffin. The remaining sludge developed a slimy putrescence as it decayed. It rotted into her skin, food for maggots that hatched and burrowed into her to grow fat upon rich vampiric flesh. She became a neverending buffet for the life cycles of countless generations of buzzing flies that bred and grew and died in the darkness. She held her hands over her nose and mouth and eyes as they chewed through her eardrums, their mandibles scratching and scraping thunderously against the thin membranes, until she lost her mind to the pain and overwhelming sound and drew breath to scream, only to choke as her windpipe filled with crawling, wriggling bodies.

And still they came. They crawled into every orifice, laying eggs that hatched into more writhing, slimy bodies that dug still further into her, until they were feeding more upon the corpses of their forbears than upon her, until there was simply no more room to buzz and shit and procreate and she lay frozen, still awake, oozing from her multitudinous wounds, among the chitinous refuse packing her prison.

Through the ensuing decades, as she lay awake and unhealing beneath the ground, it was her inner cat who shored up her screaming mind, who lent her some of a hunter’s patience. The cat wrapped Mircalla in its calm steadfastness, in the slowed, suspended musing of a predator who knows that if she but waits, prey will come, or the lion will move from beneath her tree in search of an easier meal.

When she burst from the ground into fire and smoke, dull echoing explosions shaking her bones, her naked body was riddled with holes and gangrenous in color. Skin and muscle were eaten away to the bone in places, scalp peeling off in ragged scraps from her exposed skull, tendons unable to support her former grace and speed as they clacked and twanged in dehydrated stiffness. Her senses were ruined, eyes just holes in her head, ears unable to discern sound, only her nose and tongue working for her. But her throat and stomach and intestines, too, worked. They worked on soldiers first, the wounded ones she found in her insane hunger by the scent of incipient death, the ones who didn’t even need a fresh hole to bleed through.

She fastened her remaining teeth on their stumps and ripped flesh, drinking down great arterial gushes from strong young men that couldn’t stop her from taking everything they had left, tilting her head back to prevent the precious fluid from leaking through the gaps in her lips and cheeks. As she feasted on the dying, her body regenerated. Old, ruined flesh sloughed off in great chunks from the new growth underneath, her eyes re-formed in their sockets, ocular muscles twitching the orbs wildly as they grew and reconnected to her orbits. She coughed up sloppy black wads of unidentifiable sludge that streamed down her chin and neck. Her auditory canals shoved out the detritus of decades and sealed themselves, hair cells proliferating and beating once again in time with the bursts of artillery and rattle of small arms. Some vestiges of her vampiric and feline instincts directed her to hunt the most isolated, to drag her prey to shelter, to hide what she was. 

After her essential functions had been restored, she dressed her still-healing body in bloodsoaked wool serge and staggered out of the field. She was just another soldier with a raw-meat face and hundreds of wounds. Once evacuated into the confusion of the medical tents, she found her fangs again and consumed more soldiers, doctors, nurses, and finally delivery drivers on her way out of that madness. Eventually, what remained of her sanity asserted itself.

Mircalla, the twice-born child who had loved Ell, had died in the darkness below the ground, shredded and discarded like the flesh she had worn. She gave herself a new name and settled down in a Paris bordello, snacking on the clientele and consuming the abusers, until Mother came to drag her back to Austria. As she went, she sneered at her own inability to discard the parts of her that obeyed her maker. 

Over the ensuing years, she built up a new identity; more rough and uncouth than her original personality, true, but _hers_ in a way that Mircalla, first the daughter of a count and then a tool of Mother’s, had never been. She drank and cursed and got high, talking dreamily to the stars as she traveled new lands. She spiked her hair short and pierced _everything_ with silver just to feel the burn. She fucked and bit and drank her way through girl after faceless girl, sending them home with only a bleary memory of a good time and an anemic hangover, for over half a century, ignoring protocol and decorum except when Mother summoned her home to perform her hated duties. She was as free as she could ever hope to be.

**Present day:**

The coffin had been the punishment for her **first** infraction. She could not, would not, bear a second. Some things had never left her: the fear of total darkness, the panic that hit when she was closed in too tightly, her nauseated response to old blood, her anxiety with Mother’s displeasure. Her regret over Ell.

But, but, but, the sheer presence of Laura’s solid body, warm and breathing and oh-so-human against her, vulnerable in the way that only sleep can achieve, pushed back against the fatalism, the despair. Laura trusted that no harm would come her way while she lay in Carmilla’s arms, that she was safe. And trust, in so many ways, is just hope by another name. Laura _dared_ hope that Carmilla was strong enough to keep her safe, even only if for a night, and it infected Carmilla with something that felt perilously like the seed of _belief_.

_Maybe I can convince her to run. It’s the only way we’ll survive this. But…no. She’s spent months looking for this Betty and I don’t think she’s going to stop. I’d have to break her down, disillusion her entirely, force her into the same despair I feel whenever I think of Mother and, I can’t. I cannot do that to her. **Fuck**. Why do I have to be such a sap? I'll just have to keep her the hard way. Whatever the fuck that means. _

A tickle flickered across her chest, under Laura’s head.

_Eyelashes. She’s awake._

A flutter of nervous anticipation danced through Carmilla. This was new, she realized. She hadn’t slept overnight with a conquest (Mattie, ever witty, had titled it ‘eating in’) since Ell, for obvious reasons. However, even then she had concealed the true extent of their intimacy. This would be the first morning where her cards were revealed, where her lover knew she’d been bitten. And Laura had consented, had been with her the entire time. They were on the same page, and that thought was a relief. And it was exciting, because it meant she might get to do it again, and again. Despite her fears, Carmilla wasn’t going to give this up without a fight.

Carmilla stroked her numb hand along Laura’s back. The arm across her belly tightened, then relaxed.

Laura nuzzled further into Carmilla’s shoulder and sighed, “Hey.”

Carmilla petted her again, drawling out a slow, “Hey, Cupcake, how’re you feeling?”

“Sleeeeeepy,” she heard as Laura’s breath skimmed out over her chest, “and warm.” A pause, “How are you so warm? I thought vampires were supposed to be cold?”

_Your mind is always working, isn’t it?_

Carmilla snorted, bouncing Laura’s head a little against her chest, “Don’t believe everything you read, Cupcake. My body moves, uses food for energy, has fat storage, and still has the vascular arrangements of a mammal. I make heat. My blood flows, just not as fast as a human’s and not,” she smiled as Laura pulled her hand to rest between Carmilla’s breasts, feeling for a heartbeat, “from the actions of my heart.”

The movement had dragged the blanket back to reveal Carmilla’s chest. Laura’s hand was warm against her in the chilly air and Carmilla smiled wider, watching from the corner of her eye as Laura stared at her breast. So very close. Her nipple twanged an interested response as it tightened under that intimate regard.

_I can feel her blush heating my skin. All this blushing will always be cute as hell._

“Like what you see?” Carmilla watched as Laura jumped a little, then nodded shyly.

“I like all of this. My dreams weren’t so bad. And last night was,” Laura swallowed and her leg flexed where it lay over Carmilla’s thighs, “incredible, Carm.”

Carmilla’s chest warmed still further. “For me too, Sunshine. I feel the same way.”

Laura smiled against her skin, “Cuddling here with you is so perfect. I don’t want to get up.”

_I heard a “but” in there._

Keeping her voice soft, Carmilla said, “I can hear you thinking, Creampuff.”

Laura sighed, groaning out, “I don’t want to get up, but I haven’t done anything for my midterm yet.”

Carmilla laughed, “Classes are really that important to you?”

Laura replied, “Yes, yes they are. My Dad is not paying Silas tuition, room, and board for me to lie here with you.”

Laura craned her neck upward, peering up at Carmilla as she finished her statement, and Carmilla’s chest warmed at the sight of her face. Laura’s hair was adorably tousled, her face creased and flushed with sleep.

“You know,” Laura started.

“Yes?” Carmilla smirked, staring down into caramel eyes.

“Your face is covered in dried blood and –“ Laura paused.

_Ooh that was not what I was expecting._

Carmilla raised an eyebrow, amused, “Dried blood and cum, sweetheart. Your blood, your cum. Don’t get shy on me now.”

“ **Anyway** ,” Laura continued, blushing but undeterred, “I need to make a vlog update in a few hours, so I think I’d like to get a shower.” She cleared her throat, “maybe, would you like to get that shower with me?”

Carmilla stared for a moment, then nodded dumbly, feeling her libido crackling to life along her spine at the thought. 

_I’d like that very much._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't originally planning to take this fic through some of the darker portions of Carmilla's past, but it took me there instead and I obeyed. 
> 
> Next time on _Venom:_ more of Carmilla's thoughts, reactions, and plans as the plot continues!


	12. D is for Domesticated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get your fluff here! Fresh fluff straight out of the dryer! Laura-Carmilla time and some Catmilla in the calm before the story picks up again.

They didn’t end up canoodling much in the shower, much to Carmilla’s disappointment. However, once her teeth were brushed and she stepped under the water, cleaning off her face, Laura pinned her to the wall of the shower with _such_ a kiss. Skin slid against skin, giving Carmilla prickling goosebumps, and Laura moaned into her mouth so enthusiastically that the following words didn’t hurt at all.

“I have so much work to do, Carm, and I can’t spend all day in bed with you – but you should know that I want to, very much.” Laura kissed her again, smiled at her while crinkling up the corners of her eyes, and then asked if Carmilla wanted her back washed. Carmilla used Laura’s shampoo and then washed Laura’s hair too. It was all so very _domestic_ and should have sent Carmilla running in the other direction, but it was Laura and she found she didn’t mind at all. A furry, intrusive part of her was thrilled to be grooming and being groomed by her mate (however terrible it was that they were doing it in _water_ and didn’t seem to know how to use their tongues properly), but she tried to ignore it (and the word _mate_ , what the fuck) as best she could.

Carmilla finished first, dressed herself, and, struck by an idea, took stock of Laura’s food. Nothing good. Cookies and chips and cocoa, oh my. Carmilla sighed. Her cat slunk to the surface of her mind, golden eyes and black muzzle coalescing out of the shadows with an interested, twitching tail tip at the other end.

**_Cupcake is bad huntress._ **

_You’re…not wrong. Again. This isn’t good for her, especially with the blood loss._

**_Teach to hunt?_ **

_No, it would take a lifetime of instruction to get her to actually hunt, and an ocean of tears if, gods forbid, she actually had to kill something. We will simply have to provide for her._

**_Deer in forest. Drag to room._ **

_Tempting. Her response to an entire, bleeding deer in her bed would be amusing._ Carmilla sighed. _I’d love to go hunting, but I was thinking of something a bit closer and less bloody._

Her cat snorted, unconvinced. **_Old hot meat. Dead leaves. Food for rabbits._**

The cat pinned her ears back in disgust and Carmilla smothered a laugh. Cats do **not** enjoy being laughed at, even peripherally. Once, her cat had sulked for an entire month after it cajoled her into letting it take the lead on an impromptu boar hunt, only for their panther body to slip and fall into chest-deep mud and lose the prey. It wasn’t the cold, wet slime that had pissed it off, it was Carmilla’s howls of hilarity from the backseat of her mind. In revenge, the cat had left her alone to figure out how to get all that mud out of her fur. Eventually she had just changed back and threw her clothes away.

She pushed down her humor and responded, _Dead, human food. I get why you dislike it._

She thought of her own blood bags with distaste. Especially when compared to the elixir flowing through Laura’s body, cold, dead blood was awful. Even worse, the older it was, the more of it she had to drink to keep up her strength. Even deer blood would be better than discount blood drive rejects.

_Laura needs human food, though. We’ll hunt something warm and alive soon, I swear._

The cat sent her the sound-smell-taste-feel memory of dropping from a tree limb to drag a proud stag to the ground. The hot blood in her mouth, the frantic thrashing against her suffocating bite, the drag of its dead weight up into the branches of a sturdy oak. She could feel how her carnassial teeth sliced through hide and meat to scissor off chunks of still-warm, bloody flesh. The cat faded again, leaving a single, eager thought.

**_Soon_.**

* * *

 

Before Laura truly got started on her workload, Carmilla managed to go to the caf and acquire a smorgasbord of cut sausages, ham, Schinkenspeck, blood sausage (to her delight, though she could not discern the species of creature by taste), fortified cereal, and a spinach and kale salad. She burst into the room, triumphant, as Laura (sadly fully dressed) was just pulling out the Chokoa Crunch. When Laura looked at her, head tilted in silent question at the alarmingly stuffed styrofoam carry-out container, Carmilla shrugged and handed it over.

Laura opened it, “Oh. Um. That’s a lot of meat.”

Laura looked doubtful and Carmilla realized she’d never seen the girl eat meat.

“Please tell me you’re not a vegetarian,” she groaned, “that’ll make this so much more difficult.”

Laura was looking at her curiously, comprehension dawning in her eyes, “This? What are you…are you providing for me?”

“Well you’re terrible at providing for yourself, Cupcake.”

Laura hugged the cereal box to her chest and scrunched up her face in that trademark, fucking _adorable_ glare, “I like my food. It’s delicious and full of sugar. Sugar’s good for the brain, right? I think I read that somewhere, the brain uses glucose.”

Carmilla was glad she’d researched the effects of blood loss recently. She hadn’t really cared to know what her diet was doing to her victims before now, but although convincing Laura to eat a huge pile of meat hadn’t been her intent it was becoming useful. 

“It also uses oxygen, which is why iron is important. You’re probably low. Women already need about twice as much as men just because of menstruation. And, well, you’ve lost more blood than normal this month.” 

_Yes, that’s it, remind her that you drank from her twice without her permission before last night. Smooth._

Fortunately, Laura didn’t seem too fazed by her misstep. “Oh, right,” Laura sighed and picked up a sausage leaking with melted cheese, “I do want to keep my grades up and maintain my yoga routine. So, I guess I’ll indulge your interference, this once.”

_Indulge my interference?_

Carmilla saw Laura’s dorky little wink just as she was winding up to grumble something about ingratitude, derailing her snark before it began.

_I guess I deserve a bit of teasing, if she’s letting me bite her later. Fuck, if that isn’t **such** a hot thought._

“Right,” Carmilla said, “guess I’ll take a little nap then. You really kept me up late, after all.”

Carmilla winked with a soft leer, but Laura fixed her with a determined squint that foretold dispute. Seeing her beautiful potential nap dying on the vine, Carmilla sighed.

 _Aw, dammit, she has other plans. And I’m probably going to do what she wants. When did I get so whipped?_  

“We need to know what’s in that book and, unless you have any friendly vampire buddies who read Sumerian, you’re what we’ve got. We goofed off all night,” at this she grew cherry-cheeked and cleared her throat, “and now we have to work twice as hard to make up for lost time.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes, but the Cupcake had a point, “Fine,” she growled.

She picked up the text where it had been flung by their nighttime activities, flopping on her still-rumpled bedding. She flipped to the most recently-seen virgin-eater (originality was really not an ancient sacrificial monster thing, nor was accuracy. Ell, for one, had _definitely_ not been a virgin. But it was probably some heteronormative bullshit like ‘only a penis counts’ anyway. Ugh). 

Carmilla kept an ear out for Laura’s activities while she slogged through the text. After some of the styrofoam container was emptied and the rest was stowed in the fridge, Laura walked past the beds toward her computer. She paused and stroked a hand down Carmilla’s arm.

“Thanks, Carm, for doing this. It means a lot that you’re helping me find the missing students. I think you’re really going to make a difference so that we can stop this.”

Carmilla swallowed, “I’m doing it because you asked,” was all she could think to say, and Laura smiled at her before walking over to her desk.

 _I’m **only** doing it for you,_ she wanted to say, but didn’t. She knew it to be the truth. If there was any way to get Laura out of this alive, she would personally sacrifice every person in this godsforsaken hellhole. _Especially_ the gingers. Maybe even the biology nerd (not that they weren’t a ginger, but they were a different _class_ of ginger).

But, unfortunately, burning Silas down in a storm of glorious flames would probably piss Laura off and ruin Carmilla’s newly minted sex life, so the nuclear option was tabled unless necessary. Maybe, if Laura didn’t _know_ what happened to the school, she could get them both out without losing Laura’s affections. She pondered her options, skimmed the text, and when her eyelids grew heavy the book made a handy shield from the bright daylight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand we're at the start of S01E27. Finally! Hope you didn't mind the insanely long detours I took to get to this point. ;] 
> 
> Next time on _Venom:_ the plot thickens! How will Carmilla react to the disappearance of her (distant, very distant, but still) second-favorite person on campus? How disgruntled will she be when her room is unavailable for shenanigans and she has to sleep on the _floor?!_ Find out next time, darling Muffins!
> 
> I appreciate every kudos/bookmark/comment! Thanks for sticking with me so far, or for reading so much if you're getting here for the first time! Also, comments left after this chapter will A. Wrench me away from my tortuous graduate studies for blissful, stolen moments and B. Feed me delicious happy feelings. So, thanks for that, because I am in a study VORTEX at the moment.


	13. G is for Gobsmacked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla thinks that the biology major's disappearance means Laura will get even deeper into trouble. She might be right!

Sometimes of late, Carmilla felt like Laura’s more annoying tendencies were tolerable, even somewhat cute. The way the girl lifted her spirits, the way Carmilla could use Laura’s brightness to be happier and more content, it seemed like a decent exchange. But never, ever in the morning. Carmilla grumbled internally as Laura started her vlog, loud as ever, and spat out a grumpy, “NO!” when Laura had the nerve to tease her about their mutual lack of sleep. She had been enjoying a quite nice nap before Laura interrupted.

_She calls last night fruitless research? Au contraire, Cupcake, I think my exploration of your body was quite fruit **ful**._

Unfortunately (and permanently) awake, now, she pondered the meaning of Laura’s dreams about her cat. Others had dreamed about the cat, of course, but that had been when Carmilla was actively trying to scare them away from Mother’s trap of a school. Just as Carmilla had haunted Laura’s dreams earlier in the month and got caught in the bloody nightmare with Laura. At this point, while Carmilla didn’t exactly want Laura to stay, she couldn’t see how to make her stubborn human leave, either. Regardless, she wasn’t prowling around in Laura’s dreams on purpose. Maybe it was just a strange coincidence.

**_Cupcake likes cat better than vampire._ **

Her cat was all slit pupils, smug whiskers, and contented ears.

_Hush, you,_ she growled, then had a disturbing thought. _Wait. Are you haunting her dreams without me?_ _Can you even do that?_ The cat ignored her. _Damn cat._

Carmilla sighed and closed her eyes tighter against the bright room. She decided to wait out the vlog, then pounce when Laura was least expecting her.

_Then I can show her just how “fruitless” this early morning thing can be._

But then, Raggedy Ann crashed through the door and derailed everything. Carmilla felt a sinking feeling in her gut as soon as she realized what had happened.

_This is just like Maman. She twigged Laura as a busybody fairly early on, but the most dangerous person here – at least in terms of sheer destructive capacity and access to research tools – is actually the bio major. Maman watched the videos and then didn’t waste any more time. And, fuck. If anything was going to get Laura **more** invested in this madness, this is it._

Carmilla tried, oh she tried, to convince Laura not to take the blame for this turn of events. She tried to hold back the fond smile that was leaking across her face as she told Laura that she was blameless. But Laura, plucky headstrong ridiculous creampuff that she was, wasn’t going to just sit back and let it be someone else’s responsibility. Damnit.

Wasn’t personal safety everybody’s lookout? What madness indicated to Laura’s numbskull friends that anything about Silas was safe? Why should Laura, and by extension Carmilla, have to warn anybody about the possibility of death and destruction?

It’s not like there were walking dead and exploding mushrooms and carnivorous libraries on campus, constantly alerting every human to the possibility of gruesome death.

_Why the hell do they even stay here? Maybe they’re all already infected by the brain worms and Maman is just activating them. Like the beefcake, wow is he dense. It’s almost like that idiot newbie Will already put the whammy on him. Which, actually, would make a great deal of sense. I don’t **see** any bite marks but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. _

Carmilla thought of the new bites on Laura’s thigh, how bright and vivid they had been against pale skin in the shower, and shivered slightly behind the Sumerian death catalogue she was pretending to read.

_Maybe I could distract her from all this, give her something else to focus on._

She looked over the room and sighed. Prospects for her evening didn’t look great.

But then the idiot left and Laura was all hers for just a few moments, so Carmilla decided to make them count. And her Cupcake gave her the perfect opening with the curiosity about Carmilla’s party experiences. She got to pull the girl to her, twirl her around, hear her breathy laugh. She got to see that heated look in Laura’s eyes when Carmilla said that waltzing might as well have been sex.

She ached to kiss Laura, to feel the sharp pull of air across her cheek when Laura gasped against her mouth. She yearned to strip Laura, popping each button over her heaving chest with deliberate intent, and press her to the mattress. She burnt to drag her mouth across smooth flesh and drive Laura senseless with desire.

Laura sensed it, Carmilla knew, when their eyes met. Laura’s eyes and scent screamed that she wanted to be taken to bed.

But the webcam, that damn webcam, and the intruder in Laura’s bed kept her from moving in for the kill (so to speak). And then Laura’s yawn clinched her decision.

So instead of debauching Laura as she desired, she told Laura to take her bed, brushed off her objections, winked, and left for the bathroom. She leaned against the wall and smirked as she heard Laura’s groan of, “Worst. Crush. Ever.”

Moments later, however, Carmilla jumped as the bathroom door was yanked open. She had barely turned before Laura pushed into her, a kiss burning between them as the door shut. Laura tasted so good, so hot and alive, and Carmilla caught up with the kiss in a _damn_ hurry. Carmilla teased soft lips with her tongue and groaned as Laura opened for her, sweet chocolate and spice flooding her mouth as she deepened the kiss.

Laura broke for air and Carmilla asked, laughing, “What happened to bed?”

Laura averted her gaze slightly, looking at Carmilla’s mouth, “I couldn’t forget that LaF is missing, that I don’t know what to do. I don’t really want to go to sleep. I want to feel good, with you.”

The surprised anthem of delight that had been filling Carmilla’s chest stuttered at Laura’s words. Oh. She knew what this was. This wasn’t the first time someone had jumped into Carmilla’s arms to put off the world around them. She had hoped that perhaps Laura…but no. Carmilla tried to fight off her disappointment. Laura was here, in her arms, and had kissed her first this time. It didn’t matter why.

_This is fine, it’s good, she just wants me to fuck her cares away, this is what I wanted to happen. I can take her mind off things, keep her from doing anything stupid._

Laura was still talking, accelerating into an enthusiastic ramble, “I was going to try to just go to sleep anyway, even though I’ve wanted you since the shower this morning, but then, well. It might have been nice to be normal and oblivious, but then I wouldn’t have met you, and I can’t be oblivious to you if I tried.” Laura squeezed her hands where they rested on Carmilla’s arms and looked up to meet Carmilla’s gaze, eyes sparkling, “You tried to make me feel better about everything, even though it made you look bad. You thought about warning Kirsch about Will, even though he didn’t listen. You told me a little about your past, even though I was really insensitive the first time you told me anything. You talked about dancing, you twirled me around. Your hands were on me, and your eyes. The way you _look_ at me, Carm, it makes me feel so – I was just aching to kiss you. I wanted you so badly,” she huffed, heartbeat bouncing hard within her chest. “And then you were being all chivalrous about the bed, and I normally don’t like chivalry but in this case it’s you and for some reason it’s attractive as hell. So I girled the hell up to follow you in here and did what I wanted to do all day.”

Carmilla stared at Laura, face slack, her stomach a roiling swarm of hot butterflies.

_She wants me, she’s wanted me all day, she likes what I’ve said, she likes the way I look at her, even when I’m not even trying to seduce her? She finds me attractive even when I’m just talking to her? She likes me for more than just sex?_

“Is it okay that I kissed you?” Laura’s enthusiasm was melting into concern as Carmilla gaped.

Carmilla wrenched herself back into the moment. “Yes!” she said, a little too loud, so she repeated it more softly. “Yes, it’s more than okay. It’s,” _You’re everything,_ “wonderful.” She pulled Laura in and kissed her again, and again. She started to taste the merest tinge of her own venom and wondered briefly where it had been hiding until now.

“Now,” Laura panted into Carmilla’s mouth, “Let’s go somewhere, I don’t care where, please, I need –“

“Do you trust me?” Carmilla asked, and she felt a little thrill when Laura nodded. “Hold on,” Carmilla warned, and took her.

The normal ease of her transit was complicated with the need to keep Laura intact and alive, but Carmilla was no longer the brash youth of fifty who had smeared the substance of her conquest across stone and mortar as she swirled through cracks and mouseholes. She wrapped Laura in her own matter, her own essence, as she fragmented them both into dark, thick smoke and carried her into the bathroom fan vents, through conduits and ducts to the roof. The path was familiar and their passage rapid, the only changes through the months in this dorm had been the addition of more dust and – glowing, but otherwise harmless – mouse droppings.

Laura staggered against Carmilla’s chest with a shocked gasp as the vampire reconstituted their bodies. From within Carmilla’s grasp, Laura whipped her head around to stare at the cloudy night sky, the edges of the roof dimly lit with dome lights, the lump of a tarp to the side, and then finally back up into Carmilla’s eyes.

“What,” and there was wonder in the word, fascination in the breath Laura took to continue, “How? That was. You can _apparate?!_ ”

Laura’s bewildered awe was so endearing that Carmilla could feel her own lips spread into a grin. She didn’t even try to stop it this time, charmed as she was by Laura’s obvious thrill, a feeling she barely remembered from her first bodiless journeys.

“Something like that, cutie,” she confessed, “But that’s not all I can do, if you remember,” she grasped Laura’s hand and tugged her over to the tarp. Carmilla bent and pulled the heavy plastic away from her nest, “Et voilà. As requested: Somewhere.”

Carmilla only gave Laura a moment to realize what had been revealed before she unzipped the small, modern tent. She scooted back onto the thick futon within and pulled Laura in behind her, before zipping up the opening and shoving aside the piled blankets to make room. Then Laura pounced.

They collapsed in a tangled mess of limbs, Laura’s victorious little laugh brushing against Carmilla’s neck. Then they were locked in another searing kiss, Carmilla’s world full of Laura’s lips and tongue and teeth, and, oh god, those teeth were tugging on Carmilla’s lower lip. The pine bitterness of venom coiled and mingled with the taste of Laura as Carmilla’s hunger grew for more, more, more. Carmilla growled and pushed her own fingers up into the Laura’s hair, tugging to feel the resultant whine in her mouth. A clever hand ran up under Carmilla’s shirt, nails scraping across her stomach, before Carmilla’s breast was being kneaded and molded between Laura’s fingers, the nipple spiking hot need into her with every squeeze. Carmilla braced on an elbow and laced her legs with Laura’s to push and strain and–

Carmilla’s cat loomed in the dark of her mind, wise golden eyes intent.

**_Ask_.**

_Right._

Carmilla pulled away, groaning with the loss, and looked up into Laura’s face. “What do you want,” she ground out through her lust, voice harsh against the night air.

Laura tried to follow her mouth and was stopped by Carmilla’s grip on her hair. She panted and strained to get closer, but her hand stilled against Carmilla’s breast. “What?” her breathless voice asked, “You, I want you.”

Carmilla shook her head and tried to get a handle on her voice, on her need, “Cupcake, you wanted me to ask first. I don’t,” she tried to order her thoughts and all she came up with was, “I don’t want you to be unhappy. After. So tell me what’s ok for me to do tonight.”

“Anything we’ve done before would be,” Laura shivered a little, “Amazing. Thank you for remembering. I sorta…forgot.”

Carmilla relaxed, reassured, but then Laura drew her eyebrows together and looked down at Carmilla, her expression indecipherable. “What do you want, Carm? Or, is there anything you don’t want to do?”

Carmilla blinked once, twice, again, “What?”

Laura shrugged fractionally, “It would be unfair for me to be the only one who gets to say what I want. So, is there anything else you really want, or do not want, to do?” She blushed a little, the heat radiating off her face in the dark, and she looked to the side. “Besides, I. Well, I kinda liked it last night when you told me how you were going to. Um.” She blushed harder, if that was possible, and Carmilla’s chest ached in the best way possible.

“You,” Carmilla stated simply, honestly, “I want to do you. Tell me to stop if you don’t like something, and I will. I have other things, things we haven’t done yet, that I either do or do not want to do, but they’re…adventurous, and probably won’t come up tonight. But, I,” she swallowed the ingrained urge to squash sentiment and pushed through, “I really like that you asked me.” Then, she rolled them over and finished her statement in a low purr, lips brushing Laura’s ear. “And, as a reward for your _enthusiasm_ ,” she palmed the damp crux of Laura’s jeans, chuckling at the way Laura’s whole body twitched, “I will _definitely_ use my words on you tonight.”

Carmilla’s cat squeezed her eyelids shut in feline satisfaction and drifted back into the twilight.

_Thank you._ Carmilla sent her gratitude drifting after her cat. _Thank you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who'd have thought Catmilla would help keep Carm on the straight (well, no, very very gay) and narrow? 
> 
> Next time on _Venom:_ Will it be hot and rough? Slow and sweet? Are we gonna have a Screampuff buffet? Stay tuned, gentle viewers, and thanks for reading!


	14. E is for Earthshaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla isn't sure how to put her feelings into action, but she figures it out.

Mircalla became a lover of women the first time Matska gave the baby vampire one of her ‘pets’ to play with. Matska was hardly wasteful without purpose, so Carmilla had been allowed to gorge on a traveling wastrel merely hours beforehand and was explicitly warned that Lisa was on loan for ‘educational purposes only.’

The blood-drunk fledgling took to her new studies with fervor and delight, to the extent that Matska had to enter the room and drag the exhilarated girl out before she got too hungry to heed instructions. Lisa’s languidly waving handkerchief and sultry, “Come back anytime, beautiful,” did nothing to shrink Mircalla’s newfound ego, but there was discernable vein of fond amusement under Matska’s veneer of exasperation.

Many girls and months later, the older vampire leaned against the windowsill as Mircalla swanned around their shared lodgings. Matska spoke, “You’ve certainly taken to the seduction of maidens fair, but you must become an expert before Maman returns.”

“I am already an expert,” Mircalla sighed, “For I am in love with their form, their taste, their smell. They sigh so softly and scream,” she closed her eyes in remembered bliss, “So beautifully.” She fixed her gaze on Matska again, a humorous glint in her eyes, “Did you not tell me yourself that the secret to mastery is love of your practice?”

Matska rolled her eyes and fixed an expression of noble patience upon her features, “Nevertheless, these have been prepared for your ministrations, accustomed to intimate visitations from dangerous mistresses.” She bared her fangs in emphasis. “Maman wishes you to be accomplished in the creation of your own receptive creatures from naïve, sheltered girls.”

“Why, Matska?” Mircalla pouted, “Surely Maman needs no pets or toys created by her own children?”

Matska stilled, her expression firm, “It is her will, and her will is mine. You know this. You will find it pleasing, Kätzchen,” and a wicked smile grew upon her face, “Corruption of the innocent is challenge and reward all in one.”

Indeed, Mircalla grew to love this new escapade more than the last. Her prowess increased, even as she gentled her approach to fool the untutored and coax them into debauched escapades in the dead of night. As her bloodlust fell under her absolute control, so too did a newfound method of capture present itself. Her venom, still too unrefined to introduce directly into the vein of a valuable chosen girl, could be inoculated into wine. So diluted, it would derange her prey for only an evening, either for her own enjoyment or for her mother’s mysterious purposes.   

By the time Mircalla met Ell, her game was polished and pristine. A drop of venom in the glass, smooth words of comfort and shared intimacy, freshly awoken passion and further gentle envenomation in the dark, and then, finally, deep satisfaction in the gush of hot blood over her tongue. When Ell fell to her and then, horrifically, to her mother, however, the game lost every charm it had once possessed. 

So, the girl who was once Mircalla, freshly returned to her duties of sin and despoilment, had sworn off her long-earned gifts of subtle persuasion and gentle cajolement, of sweet caresses and loving touches. She traded them for unapologetic directness, for lecherous intent openly expressed, for blood taken without the pretense of consent. It had worked to quickly drive off the timid and inexperienced while attracting the adventurous, but only for a single night of enjoyment.

And then, decades later, she became Carmilla and met Laura. The girl who not only stayed, despite repeated rough treatment, but also demanded more from Carmilla. Laura’s stubborn forthrightness pushed Carmilla to be better; not kinder or less herself, nor dishonest about her desires, but simply respectful of Laura’s preferences. She wasn’t forced to return to her past of gentleness for the sake of subtlety, to take pleasure in return for silence and submission. She could propose what she wanted, whatever she wanted, and as long as Laura agreed they would do it together. This was something very rare, for in over three centuries Carmilla had never known its like. 

So, in this small haven under the cloudy sky, when Carmilla pulled back from her teasing grope and looked into Laura’s eyes, her hand shook as she brushed Laura’s cheek with a thumb. She didn’t know if she could speak what she wanted tonight, if indeed there were words to express her new desires. But for Laura, the girl who had seen something of worth underneath her rage and ennui, she could try.

“I want,” she breathed, licking her lips, “I want to kiss you as though the stars, the moon, have all gone out and you are the first bright ray of the dawn. I want to breathe in your every exhale just to catch the traces you leave on the air.” Laura’s fingers on Carmilla’s back had stopped moving and Carmilla hurried not to notice, not to stop, “I want to hear your blood thrum, your heartbeat pound, your breath sigh, want them to fill me with purpose, and understanding, and eagerness. I want to touch every place you wish to be touched, fill every place you need filled, take your desires and make them mine. Would you let me do that, Laura?” Laura was still, so still, not even breathing under her, and Carmilla heard her own breaths trying to fill the silence.

_Please._

Laura’s hands were suddenly up around Carmilla’s neck and dragging her down, crashing their lips together, and with the first clash of their tongues Carmilla knew the answer. Laura shoved her away, “Yes! Yes, Carm, god yes,” and pulled her back in. Carmilla laughed into the kiss and then they were racing to tear off clothes, rushing to collide, skin on skin. Carmilla felt hot wetness painting her thigh as she threw off Laura’s bra, the last barrier between them, and finally they were chest to chest, cheek to cheek.

Laura kissed her again and it was so sweet, so slow, Laura’s tongue coaxing and teasing Carmilla with every stroke. “Do as I do?” Laura asked, as she rolled Carmilla’s nipple between her finger and thumb. Carmilla matched her, and as Laura’s back arched into the touch Laura’s other hand held Carmilla’s hip and guided her down to smear traces of herself along an offered thigh, just as Laura was doing on her own. They melded, there, as Carmilla licked and sucked down the side of Laura’s neck, the slow friction and tugs on her breast, Laura’s thundering pulse and little sounds driving her slowly, gloriously mad.

For once, the rhythm of her lust wasn’t rallying the charge to despoil, subvert, possess. Instead, the beat drove her to pleasure, clarify, unite. Though she had practiced every move through the centuries, this time they were not imbued with the precision of a predator, but instead enchanted with the care of a lover. There was no rush of venom, just a smooth light edge of resin on her tongue, and it was not missed. Her fangs did not fight to burst from her gums, quiescent in their caves.

Carmilla felt her body tightening against the flood of sensation, every slide and push a revelation in its simple warm pleasure. She kissed up to the corner of Laura’s jaw, tugged at an earlobe with her teeth, and panted, “Laura, Laura, Laura,” as she traced an intricate path along the jawline with her lips and tongue and teeth back to Laura’s mouth. Her hair curtained down around them, a waterfall grotto for their shared glory.

Laura slid her hand between Carmilla’s clit and her thigh and Carmilla followed her lead, until they were both arching and pushing against the other’s hand. They held barely apart, noses brushing as their breaths mingled and mixed. With every breath, Laura released some unformed sound of pleasure, sometimes with an audible “Carm” to wind between Carmilla’s ribs and nestle there, behind her sternum. Laura’s eyebrows rose and knit together, raising a little wrinkle, her eyes wide and locked on Carmilla’s face. Carmilla drank in the sight, blown away and apart and open by the novel intimacy of this uncomplicated, slow pleasure.

A few more stuttering pushes and Laura threw back her head to laugh out a cry, victory and surrender all in one, as she fell apart against Carmilla’s hand. The sight, the sound, the wet increase along her fingertips, stirred the coiled heat in Carmilla’s core and, as Laura’s fingers tensed with the orgasm, Carmilla’s next push sparked her own meltdown. Carmilla groaned and shuddered as they rode it out together, legs entwined and trembling with every brush against oversensitive flesh.

Carmilla rubbed her cheek against Laura’s face and neck, closing her eyes at the feel of skin and hair as she marked her once, twice, again. Coming back up, she kissed Laura, a hum shivering out of her throat when Laura parted for her to lazily graze their tongues together. When Carmilla pulled back, heavy-lidded eyes blinked up at her, pleased as a cat in a patch of sun.

“Hey,” Carmilla said, and stroked the tip of her nose against Laura’s.

“Hey,” Laura smiled, and a smile broke across her face as she repeated it, “Hey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla falls first, and she falls hard. 
> 
> Where will our heroines go from here, I wonder? Find out next time on _Venom_ , dearest Dreampuffs.


	15. O is for Oblivescent (attempted)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla and Laura have a conversation.

Carmilla had noticed how well she fit against Laura before, of course, but the comfortable perfection of Laura’s bare back resting against her stomach, their entwined legs, and the back of Laura’s neck rubbing Carmilla’s lips felt like a revelation nonetheless. Wispy baby hairs were silky soft against her nose and cheek, fluttering with each breath Carmilla indulged to refresh Laura’s scent.

Carmilla could sense the warm thrum of Laura’s slowing pulse everywhere: in the abdominal aorta, under her hand at the soft place just below Laura’s solar plexus; against the side of her calf, where the top of Laura’s foot gently slid back and forth in idle caresses; in Laura’s carotids as they bumped lightly with each squeeze of essential, lifegiving pressure; even against her fingertips as they scratched lightly against Laura’s scalp at the back of her head. It was soothing, rhythmic, lulling. 

Laura huffed out a little breath, then a chuckle. Carmilla felt the words against her lips, hearing them almost as an afterthought.

“You’re so cuddly,” Laura’s voice was a delighted, hazy murmur, “so much for your big, bad vampire image.” 

Carmilla didn’t even want to deny it, didn’t deny herself the little smile that was resting on her lips like it belonged, like it deserved to be there. “Only with you, Creampuff, and you won’t spoil my badass mystique.”

“Oh?” Laura turned into Carmilla slightly, bringing her jawline close enough to receive Carmilla’s spontaneous little scraping kiss. Laura sighed and wiggled closer under the blankets. “Even now that I know you _have_ read Harry Potter?”

Carmilla froze, “What? No. What are you talking about. No.”

Laura hummed and lazily brought her hand up to tap a finger against Carmilla’s nose, “No? Then how on earth would you know what the word ‘apparate’ means?”

“I, uh, guessed.” Carmilla shrugged, trying to seem uninterested, “You mentioned it once. Probably in one of your many rants about whatever ‘Snarry’ is.”

Laura shook her head, smugly continuing, “I’m onto you. Now you’ve GOT to watch the movies with me!”

 _Crap_. _Diversion, now!_

“As long as I can have you like this, I don’t care what we watch, Cupcake.” Carmilla slid her fingers down, circling Laura’s belly button and smirking as Laura twitched and laughed in ticklish reaction, grabbing at Carmilla’s hand and holding it still.  

Laura growled at her and turned still further, looking up at Carmilla in the dim light, “No fair!” she pouted.

“Neither is threatening me with children’s movies.” Carmilla said, but she still allowed Laura to lace their fingers together.

“Mm, that’s not a threat, it’s a promise,” Laura’s voice was fading again, a little yawn following right behind. “I wish we could just stay up here all night, this is nice. No one to barge in, no need for clothes, just us. But.” She sighed.

“Perry Crocker,” Carmilla grumbled.

“She’ll get worried that we got snatched too, and LaF is still missing. But we should come up here again, when there’s no massive conspiracy to worry about. Especially now that I know you can _apparate_. I mean,” Laura perked up a bit, curiosity obviously overwhelming fatique, “How do you even do that? It didn’t _seem_ instantaneous, but it didn’t take long. Actually it felt different than any description I’ve read but that’s mostly fanon anyway so –”

Carmilla chuckled and shook her head, interjecting, “Air of mystery, remember? Besides, you already know too much about vampire powers, any more knowledge and your little mortal mind will shut down in self-preservation.”

Laura scowled, but Carmilla saw the amusement behind it. “That doesn’t even make sense. Does it have something to do with the black smoke LaF said they saw while following you? And wait, if you could do that all this time, then –“ Laura bit her lip, “Why didn’t you, you know, teleport away when we – no. When _I_ had you tied up. I mean, you got sick, it wasn’t good for you. So why?”

Carmilla opened her mouth, then closed it. They hadn’t talked about her imprisonment, not in detail, and it was all still pretty mortifying.

 _But, now I’m wrapped around Laura after we fucked. No. After we shagged? No. After we had sex. Yeah._ Carmilla determinedly ignored the niggling urge to try out the phrase ‘made love.’ _So I suppose it’s not as embarrassing as it was._

“I wasn’t, uh,” Carmilla huffed and looked away from Laura’s curious gaze. _Nope, I’m still embarrassed._ She decided to just get it out. “It takes a lot of energy. I'd used up a lot of my reserve making that charm and I hadn’t recovered completely. My last batch of blood had gotten pretty old, but it was just enough to keep me going. I’d have gone for a refill the night of the party, but then I decided to go the extra mile and pick up that champagne instead and then your Scooby Squad jumped me. So I just wasn’t strong enough to smoke away. If I’d been at full strength, well. I wouldn’t have needed to get away, and you might need new friends now. And as delightful as that would be for me,” she hurried on, sneaking a peek at the complex look twisting across Laura’s face, “you’d be mad at me and we wouldn’t be here now.”

“Would you really have killed them?” Laura’s voice was tentative, but she was still holding Carmilla’s hand, her body was still pressed against Carmilla’s stomach and thighs, and she hadn’t drawn away.

Carmilla sighed and decided to keep on being honest. “Maybe. By accident. I definitely would have crushed Will’s skull instead of his collarbone. I probably would have put a couple of the others through the wall before I ran. But I would have tried to escape, not slaughter you all, since you weren’t trying to kill me. I try not to just kill people.” _Not anymore._ “And I still wouldn’t have hurt you. You were the only one that didn’t get hurt, remember?” 

Carmilla remembered how she had stopped her kick just in time to avoid Laura before the girl had pinned that leg to the bed. She was strong, for a human, but Carmilla had let that leg go and tried to fight everyone else off without it. 

“So,” and Laura’s voice was still small, “You meant it when you said that you just needed the energy to chase Will, the first time you bit me?”

Carmilla swallowed and averted her eyes from the girl in her arms, remembering the first taste of Laura’s blood, those first little sounds echoing in her ears.

_Fuck. I wish I knew what she wants my answer to be._

“I have wanted you since the day you made your scrunched up little angry face and declared that even I deserved better. You almost made me want to believe it, and then you actually started listening to me when I told you about Ell. But when I bit you…I was angry and scared, starving and exhausted, and I needed blood to go stop Will. So, yes, I pounced on the the nearest source of blood. But none of that mattered the second I tasted your blood.”

Carmilla still didn’t look at Laura’s face, worried about what she would see there. “I tasted you and I didn’t think about how Will would spin things, how Mother would torture me for failing, how much I wanted to punish you and your entire gang for humiliating me. All I could feel, smell, taste, was you. You were everything I wanted, needed. Your blood, rich and sweet as the adrenaline morphed into arousal. Your body, clutching at me and grinding against me. It was intoxicating, freeing. For a few minutes, I got lost in a way I haven’t done in a very long time.”

Carmilla could feel Laura’s attention burning, burning against her skin but she couldn’t look, not yet. Couldn’t check if Laura was rejecting her for this. But still, Laura’s body was cradled trustingly against her own, pulse rapid but not alarmed, and it gave her hope.

_Maybe the truth is enough._

“But then I remembered, came back to myself, and realized that if I didn’t catch Will, if I didn’t stop drinking from you, you might die in the aftermath. So I had to pull myself away and do what I originally intended to do.”

Carmilla paused, then concluded, “So the answer to your question is both yes and, yet, absolutely no.”

Carmilla looked back into Laura’s eyes for only a second before Laura surged up to press their lips together. Laura’s hands clutched at Carmilla’s shoulders, pulling down before Laura flipped them over. Laura’s tongue caressed Carmilla’s lips and then entered, stroking and teasing along Carmilla’s own. Then, Laura slowed the kiss before pulling back. Carmilla stared, shocked. She really hadn’t expected to be kissed like that.

**_Cupcake is good ambush hunter_.**

Carmilla couldn’t fault her cat for that one. She had been caught flat-footed, after all.

Laura’s eyes were bright, despite the gloom of the tent. “You’ve liked me since, what, the third day after you moved in? You sure didn’t act like it.”

Carmilla squirmed, uncomfortable with the level of scrutiny. “Wait, that’s what you got from what I said?”

Laura pursed her lips, “I’m not letting you deflect this time. If you liked me, why did you act like such an asshole?”

Carmilla thought they’d gone over this already. “To drive you back home, of course. You just turned out to be the most stubborn girl I’ve ever met. I tried everything. And then, well, it wasn’t working. I made the charm and tried to stay close so I could deflect Mother’s interest elsewhere.”

Laura’s smile died, “Like, onto LaFontaine.”

Carmilla’s stomach clenched, “No, not onto your friends. Not on purpose. They’re annoying, I grant you, but the biology nerd is almost not terrible.”

Laura snorted, “Wow, you must really like them, that’s the nicest thing you’ve said about anyone except me.”

Carmilla shrugged. “Believe me, Cupcake, I really thought Mother would just send Will after someone else, someone not so publicly involved. I thought – I mean, it seems stupid now, but I kinda thought that your videos protected your friends. Made them too visible to take. That’s one reason why I didn’t listen when Maman told me to wreck your webcam and your computer. I thought you were becoming too visible to abduct, and your friends too.”

Laura looked slightly mollified, but more haggard. “But instead, it made them a target. I made them a target. _God,_ Carm, what are we going to do?”

Carmilla’s heart sank. Laura was still blaming herself. Carmilla sighed and tucked Laura’s dangling hair back behind one ear. _I’m in this, just as long as you are, Cupcake._ “We are going to find them and get them back.”

Laura sighed and rested her forehead against Carmilla’s chest. “I guess that means we have to go back to the book.”

“Yeah, Creampuff. But first, some sleep, okay?”

"Okay."

 

* * *

 

After they struggled back into their cold clothes, Carmilla smoked them back into the dorm. While Laura changed into pajamas, Carmilla checked her blood supply.

_Not good. I’ve got to go tonight._

“Hey,” Carmilla said quietly, kneeling by her bed where Laura was arranging herself. “I’ve got to go out. Are you gonna be okay?”

“What, why?” Laura asked, “I thought maybe you’d want to, you know, sleep here. With me?”

The warm feeling in Carmilla’s chest from earlier returned. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to go pick up more blood.”

“Oh,” Laura began to blush and Carmilla heard her heart rate pick up, “Um, you could, if you wanted to…” she gestured at her neck.

Saliva filled Carmilla’s mouth in a hot rush at the offer, her fangs suddenly loud against her senses as they edged forward in their channels.

 _Fuck, does she **want** me to bite her again? Even if we're not in the middle of sex? Holy fuck. Holy _ **_fuck_ ** _. But I can't take that much from her._

Carmilla swallowed all that sudden lusty hunger back with a shudder and shook her head. Her voice was lower, hoarse, “God, fuck Laura. I want to, you have no idea how much I want to drink from you again, but I need more than you can safely provide. It’s better if I’m well fed and, maybe, if you want to, I could get to enjoy drinking from you as a treat.”

Laura’s blush hadn’t receded, in fact had deepened slightly, but she nodded. “Okay.”

Carmilla smirked, suddenly struck with mischief, “Besides, if I drank from you all of the time you might give me diabetes.” 

Laura scowled, trying to wrestle down a smile. “Well, you should go then. Wouldn’t want Miss Snarkyfangs to get a cavity.”

Carmilla leaned forward and kissed Laura, soft and slow. “I’ll see you in the morning, Creampuff. Sweet dreams.”

 

* * *

 

Carmilla smoked away, boiling into the vents to travel back up to her rooftop aerie.

 ** _Hunt?_** Her cat was eager, already oozing tendrils of hot energy that brushed up against the edges of Carmilla’s human shape like a furry pelt against the inside of her skin. Ghostly claws ached under her fingertips, itching to flash outwards and bury themselves in struggling prey.

 _Hunt._ Carmilla confirmed. She bared her teeth into one last feral grin as she let the change take her, them, into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, on _Venom:_ What do our kitty friends find for dinner?


	16. H is for Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla's cat has been aching to stretch her legs.

The cat stretched, her sleek muscles flexing under her shiny, black coat. Then she was off, her haunches bunching and releasing with each spring from rooftop to rooftop. She followed her familiar route over each of the dorms as she moved eagerly toward the woods, checking for new developments despite her yen for the trees. The air was chill, crisp, with a bright clarity delivered by the generous moon that further enhanced the grays of her night vision. 

She had burst into existence from the vampire’s pale flesh, whole and pure in the moonlit night, just as she always did. They had an arrangement, the two hunters, built over centuries of co-existence: the vampire ruled their bipedal form while the cat owned their paws and tail. It was just as it should be. They had each dabbled, of course, had played with the other’s form, but they had also learned to delight in their partner’s hunts, when they could observe and deliver biting commentary. It worked, they worked.

**_Cat is cleverest hunter, cleverest watcher._ **

A quick, _You wish, cat,_ floated up into the cat’s mind from the darkest corner of their shared consciousness. The vampire was amused, as was the cat. This debate was familiar and as beloved as the chill Styrian air currently stirring her whiskers.

On the penultimate building, she disturbed a new colony of pixies. The scouts chittered in alarm at the sight of the big cat and dashed inside the central chimney, trailing multicolored sparks. The cat perked up her ears and circled twice, head raised as she sniffed the air, before standing up on her hind paws to peek inside. All was dark and silent until she ventured a paw inside, whereupon the defensive huddle of pixies squeaked a defiant, discordant war cry and loosed a volley of tiny arrows. The cat whipped back with vampire speed, whiskers quivering in cat amusement.

_They’ll be agitated for days,_ the vampire chuckled as the cat huffed in amusement. Then she moved on. There were bigger things than pixies to agitate that night.

It had not always been this way, this comfortable exchange (mutualism, the vampire called it). But they had been young, and the cat much, much younger, when they first met inside this mind. The languages they shared, that of fear (of the Mother, always of the Mother, never hint never tell never change minds in her sight) and that of ravening hunger (for the chase for the hunt for the slaughter for the feast) had taught them both much of their unexpected partner. They had survived the fragile months of new acquaintance and thus their secrets were yet their own.

On the edge of the last rooftop, the cat stopped to listen. The myriad soft sounds and scents of human habitation washed over them, punctuated by a few spots of late-night activity. The vampire interpreted. Besides the sex ( _overenthusiastic and probably boring as hell_ ) and media ( _too loud_ ), the parties ( _too crowded and stinking of cheap beer_ ) and study groups ( _too caffeinated_ ), there wasn’t much of interest.

The cat drew on the vampiric talents provided freely by her partner and leapt off the roof into open air only to dissolve, swirling as an inky eddy of smoke over open ground to the woods. Once among the shadows of trees and brush, she snapped back into solid form and shook out her pelt, banked excitement speeding her breath.

**_Time to hunt._ **

Off into the darkness she paced, bright, golden-green eyes guiding the soundless tread of soft paws. With every step away from human habitation, the forest grew in life and activity. Here, rodents chewed and skittered under dry leaves. An owl swooped out of nowhere, audible only when talons pierced some small furry creature with a squeaking crunch. It rested not a second before flapping upward on soundless soft wings, lost to the cat’s senses within moments. A fox froze where it dug after some small prey, somehow sensing the large predator, and raced off to find shelter.

Otherworldly beings also fled the cat’s approach. The vampire heard them go, satisfaction oozing out with every new capitulation. Few so close to Silas were big enough, strong enough, or new enough to risk standing their ground against a creature of her power. In the early days of every cycle, the cat’s insouciance drew in several of the younger, more territorial beasts of Styria, if only to serve as an object lesson. Everything else gave her a wide, respectful distance until the next absence. The cat almost regretted that caution – the owlbears may have been touch, but the taste of unnatural, hot, _magical_ meat was a treat.

**_Vampire drinks cold, dead blood._** She hacked in displeasure at the memory.

_Them’s the breaks to stay alive, fuzzball. Besides, Laura isn’t cold or dead._ The vampire hummed, offering up the taste-smell memory of drinking Laura’s blood.

The cat chuffed in agreement. **_Good Cupcake, delicious Cupcake. Should eat Cupcake more often._**

_I’ll get right on that._

**_Can get off too._ **

_…you are insufferable. Where do you learn these things?_

The cat projected smug accomplishment back at her vampire before getting back to the hunt at hand.

Fortunately, the common animals of the forest were much less perceptive than the oddities. The cat did not hunt often enough to permanently dislocate her favorite, dumb, delicious prey, and so the hunter’s mood brightened when she caught the scent of fresh deer spoor. Carefully, she ascended, claws digging deeply into a thick trunk before she was moving from branch to branch, tree to tree, tearing through bark to support her leaps and bounds. Soon, she picked a spot to drape herself across a sturdy bough, fifteen feet above the trail, eyes half-open and body lax with the impending wait.

Within the hour, a strong young buck, hopelessly lost to his rut, wandered down the game trail. The cat was a shadow, invisible invincible inconceivable until she dropped with a silent snarl and wrapped herself around his chest to clamp his foolish neck shut. Oh, how he bucked as his hot blood washed into her mouth, as she bit down tighter, and tighter, ratcheting her jaws closed until her matched canines almost met. How he thrashed and fell, slowly, inevitably, to his knees. How she held him fast and felt the life flee his body.

She dragged him off the trail, into the woods, and tore open his skin and gut as the muscles bounced in dying twitches against her teeth. His organs, his blood-rich spleen and liver and heart, were gulped down in great chunks as she tore and cut with her carnassial teeth, ever sharp and ready to scissor through flesh and gristle alike. With paws bracing and jaws wrenching, she cracked his great bones to rasp out the fatty marrow with her flexible, barbed tongue. She lapped up his blood as it pooled in the great cavity of his once-whole, once-living body. Then, at last, she left the carcass to the foxes, to the martens, and the other lesser creatures that would pull his remains apart and return them to the soil.

She was full, sated with the kill, but she had one last pleasure to indulge before she slept. She dragged herself, swollen belly tight with meat and blood, up the nearest tree. Meticulously, thoroughly, she cleaned her face, neck, shoulders, paws, claws, flanks, stomach, tail of everything good they had done. She thanked them for their strength, their loyalty, their beauty. And then she receded into slumber.

 

* * *

 

Carmilla crouched on the limb in the cat’s stead and looked back to the buck. Already the creatures of the forest were gathering, circling, unwilling to leave the bounty but wary to approach with the killer still above. She shook herself and swung down to stride off into the night.

_Sleep well, my friend,_ she thought, and received only a thrumming throat-song in answer. It was more than enough. 

Well-fed and humming with the energy of her cat’s kill, Carmilla headed toward the hospital.

_They had a blood drive two days ago. Maybe someone interesting donated a bit of blood…_

 

* * *

 

 

A hunt always did wonders for Carmilla’s mood – something about being pushed to the back of her cat’s straightforward mind as their body followed the push and pull of instinct, uncomplicated by intrusive fears, dreams, and hopes, soothed the rough edges of Carmilla’s rushing thoughts. And, for the first time in decades, her mood was already in good form before the hunt. She was… _exuberant_. It was a strange feeling, but she wasn’t going to examine it too closely. 

The blood bank didn’t hold anything more special than a few bags of witchy blood and some units of packed RBCs, but it was all much fresher than anything in her minifridge. Besides, Laura was back in their room, willing and so, so warm, and just a taste now and again would supplement the slowly-dying, bagged blood of any creature. Carmilla liberated several month’s supply and packed it carefully in a cold transport bag, strapping it over her jacket before dissolving up into the handy conduits overhead to wind her tortuous way up to the rooftop.

The hospital was on the opposite side of campus from where she had entered the forest, the other tip of the fat crescent formed by dorms and class buildings, but this time she didn’t bother to patrol slowly along her usual return path to room 307. She ran, relishing the hot energy that fueled her leaps and bounds across the rooftops. She felt limitless, like gravity’s pull was merely a guideline.

Times like these, being a vampire was exhilarating. That was, perhaps, one explanation for how she didn’t see the ambush.

She was caught completely unawares on the roof of the dorm next to home. Something rammed hard into her stomach as she streaked toward her last jump to safety.

_A shoulder!_ She thought as her diverted momentum tumbled her across the gravel, the bag’s strap sliding off of her shoulder as rocks tore at her flesh and clothes. She took control of the roll, planting her hands and toes to leap back up.

A fist shot at her face, inhumanly fast but much, much too slow for Carmilla’s age and strength. She grabbed the other vampire’s wrist – for it was a vampire, a young one by feel of his aura – and pulled him in as she stomped a front kick into his sternum. As he folded forward around her boot, she dropped him and rode him down, landing with her knee in the same spot. It crunched inward, the thick cartilage between rib and sternum snapping as it detached and pushed inward, crushing against the other vampire’s heart.

As the body under her convulsed, she dropped the arm she had dislocated and snatched the other forearm, twisting it until shards of bone protruded from the useless limb. Her attacker wheezed, still unable to speak, fangs flashing as he tried to snap at her. She grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face sideways into the rooftop, grinding it into the sharp little stones. She lifted it and did it again, and again, until the bone was cracking along his temple and his body went tense and still with fear. She had his attention.

Carmilla snarled, all of her enraged power swirling up to taint her voice, “You are in my hunting ground, rat. Whose are you?”

A breathy whisper, something that could barely be called a voice, escaped him, “Will—iam.”

_Of course, the master rat._

William had always been among the weakest of Mother’s children, body and mind. At a similar postmortem age, Carmilla had been far and away more powerful than Will would ever be. So, Will made stooges and spies, raising those few humans pathetic enough to be dominated by such a weak excuse for a nosferatu into his own undead sycophants. None of his more powerful, more favored siblings had ever had the need or desire for such a thing. Besides, Mother hated the scurrying, flinching things, since anything that submitted to William was lower than dust in her eyes.

_He was so close to Laura._

A thrill of panic surged up her spine at the thought of her human, asleep and defenseless, so close to this creeping excuse for a vampire. She inhaled deeply, scenting the air all around the rat. Behind the spicy tang of vampire blood and the faint traces of Will’s scent, there was a reek of old, dead human blood crusted into his clothes but nothing fresh. And, most hearteningly, there was no trace of Laura. She relaxed slightly.

Her cat was awake again, watching through Carmilla’s eyes, and when Carmilla paid attention to her she flattened her ears in angry derision.

**_Predator, in our territory! Destroy it._ **

_Yes. A brief hunt first, we need information._

The cat flicked her tail as Carmilla turned back to her prey.

“Why are you here?” Her voice was no less harsh, and his eyes rolled in their sockets as he tried to flinch away.

“Watching. Waiting. Master said to call when you leave. Please, don’t kill me. I haven’t had blood for weeks, I just saw the blood bag and I need it so bad. You understand, right? I need it.”

_Master. What a fucking useless prick. He doesn’t even feed his thralls._

Carmilla looked over at the bag she’d dumped, pleased to see that it remained intact. Hopefully the insides had been protected from the impact.

“What did he say when you called?” She saw his hesitation and pressed down harder, feeling the edges of his ribs brushing the sides of her knee through his shirt.

The helpless man – boy really, this used to be a college student – groaned and scrabbled at her with his shattered arm, trying to shove her away, kicking his heels helplessly against the gravel of the roof.

“What did he say?” Carmilla repeated, relentless.

He sucked in a shallow breath and gasped out, “It’s not time yet! Master said,” another breath, “it’s not time yet. Told me,” breath, “to call when you were back.” Breath, “Please don’t kill me, I don’t wanna die, please!”

Carmilla stared at him, a worthless husk that was probably human just a few months prior. Then, with a grab and a quick wrench, she broke his neck.

The cat purred in satisfaction.

  

* * *

 

 

The body wasn’t leaking too much, but Carmilla ground her teeth at the stench of the thing as she carried it over to the edge of the roof. She peered over the crenellations, seeing a shadowed gargoyle on the corner.

“Hey,” she murmured, dumping the body to the ledge below, “Want to make a bargain?”

A few minutes later, she was on her way with the guy’s cellphone and her blood stash. The local gargoyles had long been susceptible to a substantial bribe of birdseed and suet, especially when pigeons were scarce, and this time she had even given them the griffon’s new nest site as a gesture of good faith. The body would be displayed on the Zeta house’s lawn by sunrise, and Carmilla was sure that Will would get her message. As a bonus, his cadre of fledglings would know what awaited if he tried to send any after her again.

As quietly as possible, Carmilla scented out her tent on the top of the dorm – untouched – and dissolved back into her room. Two humans slept undisturbed, one witchy and one _hers_. Carmilla stowed her treasures and then stood over Laura as she slept in Carmilla’s bed.

There was room for one more. But as much as Carmilla ached to nestle in with Laura, she hummed with the directionless energy of her anger with Will and the cat’s urge to protect their den. The cat, still awake, decided to chime in.

**_Mate is vulnerable._ **

_That word is weird, stop using it._

**_Mate,_** the cat insisted, **_Vampire says Cupcake, cat says Mate. Same._**

_Then just call her Cupcake._

**_Cupmate._ **

_No._

**_Matecake?_ **

_Fuck no. Let’s just…agree to disagree. But you’re right. I need to make sure Will doesn’t show up. And she needs to sleep._

**_Enjoy sleep on floor._ **

_Fuck you too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good to see y'all again! Next time on _Venom:_ a return to our regularly-scheduled binge research.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! I live on feedback. The plan is to keep exploring the Intimate Uses of Vampire Venom through the plot of season 1, and after that we'll see.
> 
> Come talk to me on Twitter! [ @SmugMischief ](https://twitter.com/SmugMischief)


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